Verbal task demands are key in explaining the relationship between paired-associate learning and reading ability

Abstract

Paired-associate learning (PAL) tasks measure the ability to form a novel association between a stimulus and a response. Performance on such tasks is strongly associated with reading ability, and there is increasing evidence that verbal task demands may be critical in explaining this relationship. The current study investigated the relationships between different forms of PAL and reading ability. A total of 97 children aged 8-10 years completed a battery of reading assessments and six different PAL tasks (phoneme-phoneme, visual-phoneme, nonverbal-nonverbal, visual-nonverbal, nonword-nonword, and visual-nonword) involving both familiar phonemes and unfamiliar nonwords. A latent variable path model showed that PAL ability is captured by two correlated latent variables: auditory-articulatory and visual-articulatory. The auditory-articulatory latent variable was the stronger predictor of reading ability, providing support for a verbal account of the PAL-reading relationship.

Learning correspondences between magnitudes, symbols and words: Evidence for a triple code model of arithmetic development

“…Our results therefore show convincingly that pairedassociate learning involving magnitudes is specifically related to arithmetic. In addition, in line with earlier findings, paired-associate learning tasks involving a spoken response are unique predictors of reading ability (Litt et al, 2013;Litt & Nation, 2014;Clayton et al, 2018).…”

“…As hypothesised, paired-associate learning involving mappings between magnitudes and verbal labels or visual symbols predicted individual differences in arithmetic skills in children, even after controlling for the effects of other established predictors of arithmetic. In contrast, paired-associate learning tasks involving mappings with verbal output (visual-verbal; magnitude-verbal) predicted reading ability, consistent with previous research (e.g., Litt and Nation, 2014;Clayton et al, 2018). In short, our findings show that learning the association between magnitude representations and their corresponding symbolic form is particularly relevant to arithmetic performance, while paired-associate learning tasks involving verbal (spoken) outputs are a predictor of reading ability.…”

“…Our findings confirm the results from many previous studies showing that phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge and Rapid Automatized Naming are critical and powerful predictors of variations in reading development (Hulme & Snowling, 2012. Furthermore, consistent with previous studies (Litt & Nation, 2014;Clayton et al, 2018), we found that paired-associate learning tasks that involve a verbal output account for variance in reading performance. This pattern is in line with the suggestion of Clayton et al (2018) who argued that the amount of phonological information needed to be learned in a paired-associate learning task is a critical influence on the strength of the relationship between paired-associate learning and reading.…”

“…The relationship between paired-associate learning and reading is used as a control condition to investigate whether paired-associate learning involving magnitudes is specifically related to arithmetic. Paired-associate learning tasks that involve a verbal output are known to be correlates of reading ability (Clayton, Sears, Davis & Hulme, 2018;Litt & Nation, 2014) so we predict that paired-associate learning conditions involving a verbal output (i.e., visual-verbal; magnitude-verbal) will be correlates of reading performance.…”

“…Paired-associate learning is the ability to form connections between arbitrary pairs of stimuli such as visual symbols and their verbal labels (Litt, de Jong, van Bergen & Nation, 2013). The ability to form such mappings is known to predict reading ability (Litt & Nation, 2014;Clayton, Sears, Davis, & Hulme, 2018;Warmington & Hulme, 2012) but the extent to which paired-associate learning predicts arithmetic skills is as yet unclear. In this paper we explore whether differences in paired-associate learning (specifically learning mappings between magnitudes and verbal labels or visual symbols) are related to individual differences in children's arithmetic skills.…”