The role of intrinsic reward in adolescent word learning

While reading, we extract the meaning of words from context, without even realizing that we are honing our vocabulary in the process. A great deal of research has focused on how psycholinguistic properties of words, or cognitive factors such as memory and attention influence word learning. Rather less work has focused on why we are motivated to learn words in the first place. In adults, a new series of experiments has shown that intrinsic reward signals accompany successful word learning from context. In addition, this experience of reward facilitates long-term memory for the learned words. In adolescence, developmental changes are seen in both reward and motivation systems, as well as in reading and language systems. Here, in the face of this developmental change, we ask whether adolescents experience reward from word learning, and how the reward and memory benefit seen in adults is modulated by age. We propose to use a well-validated naturalistic reading paradigm that involves extracting novel word meanings from sentence context without the need for explicit feedback. By exploring ratings of enjoyment during the learning phase, as well as recognition memory for words a day later, we will assess whether adolescents show the same reward and learning patterns as adults. We plan to test 400 children between the ages of 10-18 (a minimum of N=84 in each 2-year age-band) using this paradigm. This work will give us greater insight into the process of language acquisition, and set the stage for further investigations of intrinsic reward in typical and atypical development.

在阅读过程中，我们往往不知不觉地从语境中提取词义，同时也在润色我们的词汇储备。众多研究聚焦于探讨词汇的心理语言属性，诸如记忆与注意等认知因素对词汇习得的影响。然而，关于我们为何最初渴望学习词汇的问题，相关研究却相对较少。在成人群体中，一系列新近的实验表明，成功从语境中习得新词时，会伴随内在的奖励信号。此外，这种奖励体验有助于长期记忆的巩固。进入青春期后，奖赏系统、动机系统以及阅读和语言系统均发生了一系列的发展性变化。面对这一发展性变革，本研究旨在探究青少年在词汇学习过程中是否能够体验到奖励，以及成年期观察到的奖励与记忆益处是否随年龄增长而发生变化。我们计划采用一种经过充分验证的自然阅读范式，该范式涉及从句子语境中提取新颖词义，而不需要明确的反馈。通过分析学习阶段中的愉悦度评价以及次日对词汇的识别记忆，我们将评估青少年是否展现出与成人相似的奖励和学习模式。我们计划使用此范式测试400名10至18岁（每个两年年龄组至少84人）的儿童。这项研究将为我们深入了解语言习得过程提供更深入的洞察，并为在典型和非典型发展过程中进一步探究内在奖励机制奠定基础。