Implicit Artificial Grammar and Incidental Natural Second Language Learning: How Comparable Are They?

Artificial Grammar learning is an experimental paradigm for studying domain-general learning processes that operate largely outside of awareness. Many studies in this paradigm have demonstrated that learners exposed to strings of letters that conform to the grammar come to know, in a very short time, complex constraints on how they can be sequenced, without being able to verbalize this knowledge. This article summarizes results of a study (Robinson, 2002, 2005) that compared learning of an Artificial Grammar, by experienced second language learners, with their learning of a novel natural second language, Samoan. Implications are drawn from this comparison concerning the extent to which inferences about the earliest stages of natural second language acquisition can be drawn from the many studies of Artificial Grammar learning that have been done in the broader field of cognitive psychology.