Tracking phonological regularities: exploring the influence of learning mode and regularity locus in adult phonological learning

Research on phonological learning has shown that adult learners are capable of effectively tracking regularities in phonological patterns. In our study, we investigated the dynamics of the learning process for regularity tracking. Adult learners participated in a phonological learning experiment where they acquired vowel harmony rules for forming plurals. The experiment had four conditions, varying in learning mode (goal-oriented vs. exploratory) and the locus of phonological regularity (phonotactics vs. alternation). When learners had no explicit learning goal and when the language involved random alternation patterns, their learning process showed a strong preference for regularity. This suggests that the application of statistical learning metrics is influenced by two factors: greater uncertainty in the exploratory conditions compared to the goal-oriented conditions, and a stronger inclination to avoid irregularities in alternation compared to phonotactics.