Conference

08:00 - 08:45        Registration & Welcome Coffee

08:45 - 09:00        Opening Remarks

09:00 - 09:50        Keynote speaker 1: Jenny Saffran

09:50 - 11:10        Oral Session 1: SL and Cognitive Abilities

09:50 - 10:10 (OS-1.1.) Neural tracking of the rhythmic beat: a window on the detection of non-adjacent dependencies in adults and school-aged children. Bianca Franzoia, Matthew O' Connor, Nicola Molinaro, Beatriz de Diego Lazaro & Ruth de Diego Balaguer

10:10 - 10:30 (OS-1.2.) Statistical Learning and Mathematics: Are Different Domains and Modalities of Statistical Learning Related to Different Math Skills? Michelle C. Janssens, Liv Smets, Eleonore H.M. Smalle, Arnaud Szmalec & Bert Reynvoet

10:30 - 10:50 (OS-1.3.) From Prediction to Feeling: The Embodied Predictive Dynamics in the Statistical Learning of Music. Tatsuya Daikoku

10:50- 11:10 (OS-1.4.) Probing the role of statistical learning in language abilities with an individual differences approach. Haoyu Zhou, Fabienne Chetail, Marc Brysbaert, Aaron Vandendaele & Louisa Bogaerts

11:10 - 11:40        Coffee break

11:40 - 13:10       Symposium 1 Evolution and Cross-Species Perspectives on SL

11:40 - 12:10 (S-1.1.) Theme Speaker Inbal Arnon. Cultural evolution creates language-like structure: from humans to humpback whales and beyond

12:10 - 12:30 (S-1.2.) Dog puppies, pigs, and wild boars do not track complex statistical patterns in speech as adult dogs do. Attila Andics, Kinga G.Tóth, Kitti Szabó  & Marianna Boros

12:30 - 12:50 (S-1.3.) Recursive Statistical Learning in Adults, Children, and Monkeys. Elijah Tramm & Stephen Ferrigno

 12:50 - 13:10 (S-1.4.) Disentangling implicit from explicit sequence learning in primates. Raphaelle Malassis, Laura Moscado, Jerome Sackur & Dezső Németh

13:10 - 15:00        Break (Lunch on your own)

15:00 - 16:00        Oral Session 2: Theoretical perspectives

15:00 - 15:15 (OS-2.1.) Statistical learning induces neurodynamic adjustments to cortical speech encoding and affects speech motor control. Lori L. Holt, Timothy Murphy, Lin Zhou, Kyle Huffaker, Fernando Llanos & Nazbanou Nozari

15:15 - 15:30 (OS-2.2.) Challenges to a Statistical Learning Approach to Reading. Jay Rueckl

15:30 – 15:45 (OS-2.3.) Morpheme Learning in the Noisy Landscape of Natural Text. Kathy Rastle

15:45 – 16:00 (OS2.4) Resolving Core Debates in Statistical Learning: Moving Beyond the Myth of Process Purity. Dezső Németh

16:00 - 16:20        Poster Blitz I

Presenting “Mega-SL”: A Large-Scale, Open Dataset for Statistical Learning Research. Natan Ilani Shames, Nadav Weisler & Noam Siegelman

How underlying statistical structures modulate the neural response to rapid auditory sequences . Alice Milne, Buse Adams & Maria Chait

Early sensitivity to zipfian structure: skewed distributions facilitate statistical word segmentation in infants. Lucie Wolters, Mitsuhiko Ota & Inbal Arnon

Decoding Patterns: EEG Insights into Auditory Statistical Learning in Norwegian Children. Giulia Zantonello, Fatih Sivridag, Valentin Vulchanov & Mila Dimitrova Vulchanova

Language Learning in a Stressful World: The role of Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity in Statistical Learning from Speech. Aliva Sholihat, Risto Halonen, Riikka Möttönen & Anu-Katriina Pesonen

16:20 - 18:00        Poster Session I & Coffee break

Absence of sex differences in implicit statistical learning

Beyond the Single Stream: Neural Entrainment to Two Artificial Languages in Bilinguals and Monolinguals

Brain-like Representations in Predictive Coding Networks during Statistical Learning

Capturing learning on the fly: an eye-tracking method to quantify prediction errors and updating the prior

Children Use Distributional Morphosyntactic Cues to Infer Speaker Group Membership

Decoding Patterns: EEG Insights into Auditory Statistical Learning in Norwegian Children.

Developmental trajectories of neural tracking of lexical-semantic features in children with cochlear implants

Dimensional reweighting in sound category learning

Dynamic Transition Networks of Dyadic Toy Play

Dyslexia is associated with a developmental lag in incidental statistical learning

Early sensitivity to zipfian structure: skewed distributions facilitate statistical word segmentation in infants.

Evidence for spatial attention under uncertainty contexts: statistical learning effects in the Mexican-Hat Profile

Exploring the interplay between DLPFC hemodynamics, statistical learning and mind wandering: an FNIRS study

Foreign Language Effect: A Triptych Framework

From co-occurrence to structure: seamless integration of space, time, and context in visual statistical learning

Gender is embedded in the distributional semantics of inanimate nouns like spoon in 26 gendered languages

Grounding the arbitrary: Distributional learning and acquired embodiment of grammatical gender

How underlying statistical structures modulate the neural response to rapid auditory sequences .

Inhibitory rTMS over the bilateral DLPFC modulates interference between competing statistical representations

Is Statistically-Based Chunking Unitary Across Levels of Linguistic Representation?

Language Learning in a Stressful World: The role of Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity in Statistical Learning from Speech.

Learning pairs without awareness - differentiating symbolic from statistical learning

Learning under ambiguity: structured training and working memory in cross-situational word learning

Mind wandering dynamically regulates the interaction between implicit statistical learning and inhibitory control

Neural Phase Synchronization in Statistical Learning in Adulthood: Effects of Sequence Structure, Coarticulation, and Learning Trajectory

Performance Sensitivity to Increased Complexity reduces Learning Effects on Rhythms’ Self-reported Liking

Presenting “Mega-SL”: A Large-Scale, Open Dataset for Statistical Learning Research.

Referential adaptation in the face of changing input frequencies: The system wants to return to baseline

Sensitivity to Informative Print-to-Sound and Print-to-Meaning Regularities Predicts Reading Skill and Growth in Reading Disability

Speaker variability and task order effects in cross-situational statistical learning

Statistical language learning in adults: the role of individual differences in everyday executive functioning

Statistical Learning Development Across Infancy and Caregiver Influence: An Optically Pumped Magnetometer Magnetoencephalography (OPM-MEG) Study Design and Pilot Results

Statistical Learning in Math? Revisiting Proximity-Precedence Effects from Associative Learning Perspectives

Statistical Learning of multi-lingual conceptual structures

Statistical Regularities in Word Contexts Foster Word Learning

Statistical Structure and Representation Consistency Shape Feature Memory

Strategic Flexibility in Orthographic Mapping: How Task Context Modulates Radical Sensitivity

The effects of type and token frequency on semantic extension

The Impacts of Impact: Head Trauma’s Relationship to Statistical Learning

The Role of Environmental Responsiveness in Infant Language Learning

When faced with foreign accent: Exploring the development of receptive and productive phonemic recalibration

When Predictions Falter but Movements Don’t: Implicit Statistical Learning in Parkinson’s Disease

When statistics are informative, does tone matter?

Who Benefits from Sleep? Individual Differences in the Consolidation of Second Language Grammar

09:00 - 09:50        Keynote Speaker 2: Pierre-Yves Oudeyer. Curiosity in human statistical learning: computational theories, experiments and applications in AI and education

09:50 - 10:50        Oral Session 3: Development

09:50 - 10:10 (OS-3.1.) Early Caregiver Predictability and the Developmental Origins of Individual Differences in Statistical Learning. Tess Forest, Khula Study Team, Laurel Gabard-Durnam, Kirsten Donald & Dima Amso

10:10 - 10:30 (OS-3.2.) Like sponges: children’s self-generated interactions soak optimal statistics for learning . Hadar Karmazyn-Raz & Linda B. Smith

10:30 - 10:50 (OS-3.3.) Word search measures visual statistical learning and reading in children. Erin Isbilen, Noam Siegelman, Jay Rueckl, Kenneth Pugh & Richard Aslin

10:50 - 11:20        Coffee break

11:20 - 13:10        Symposium 2: Computation and Language

11:20 - 11:50 (S-2.1.) Theme Speaker Marc Joanisse. Statistical language learning in a quasi-regular world

11:50 - 12:10 (S-2.2.) Deaf readers' sensitivity to orthographic statistics: Evidence from a word search task. Karen Emmorey, Enza Visco, Allison Bassett & Erin Isbilen

12:10 - 12:30 (S-2.3) Developmental approach reveals the statistical learning pattern of neural language models: transformers generalize from the most global distributional patterns . Wang Bojun, Holly Jenkins & Elizabeth Wonnacott

12:30 - 12:50 (S-2.4.) The development of the relationship between distributional learning and prediction in language. Zhenghan Qi, Heesu Yun, Yi-Lun Weng & Amanda Owen Van Horne

12:50 - 13:10 (S-2.5.) The Role of Chunking in Implicit Statistical Learning of Naturalistic Language: A Comparative Study on Indian Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder and Developmental Dyslexia. Arpitha Vasudevamurthy & Xiuli Tong

13:10 - 15:00        Break (Lunch on your own)

15:00 - 16:30        Symposium 3: SL and language

15:00 - 15:30 (S-3.1.) Theme speaker Patrick Rebuschat. Cross-Situational Learning as a Central Paradigm for Statistical Learning: Evidence from 20 Years of Research

15:30 - 15:50 (S-3.2.) Using speaker identity information to focus cross-situational learning of novel words. Padraic Monaghan, Kin Chung Jacky Chan, Emily Mallinson, Katy Malcolm & Nomi Olsthoorn

15:50 – 16:10 (S-3.3.) Using Eye Tracking to Investigate How Feedback is Integrated During Real-Time Statistical Learning. Felicity F. Frinsel, Fabio Trecca & Morten H. Christiansen

16:10 - 16:30 (S-3.4.) Understanding singular they becomes easier with exposure.

16:30 - 16:50          Poster Blitz II

(No need to) mind the beat: Statistical learning with non-isochronous sequences. Liesa Ravijts & Louisa Bogaerts

Exploring multiword chunks with multiple statistical dimensions. Pablo Contreras Kallens

Neural Evidence for Rapid Statistical Learning from Natural Speech in an Unfamiliar Language. Qifei Wang, Eva Berlot, Judit Fazekas, Jakub Szewczyk & Floris de Lange

Follow the Dot: A New Scalable Mouse-Tracking Method for Studying Sequence Learning in Real Time. Robyn Griffiths, Francesco Cabiddu, Mark Torrance, Gary Jones, Jens Roeser & Sofia Tsitsopoulou

Exploration-Exploitation Strategy in Visual Statistical Learning: an EEG Study. Qing Guo & Shelley Xiuli Tong

How does the statistical learning timeline change when sequences are different frequencies or when pauses are inserted into the stream? Gary Jones, Robyn Griffiths, Francesco Cabiddu, Jens Roeser, Sofia Tsitsopoulou & Mark Torrance

16:50 - 18:30        Poster Session II & Coffee break

(No need to) mind the beat: Statistical learning with non-isochronous sequences.

A Sign of Things to Come: Uncertainty Guides Temporal Attention in a Target-Detection Task

Beyond Accuracy: Modeling Inter-Item Dependencies to Measure Independent Statistical Learning

Bilingual Artificial Grammar Learning: The Role of Indexical Cues in the Simultaneous Acquisition of Multiple Rule Structures

Can children learn nouns and verbs simultaneously from cross-situational statistics?

Children’s sensitivity to natural language statistics predicts expressive and receptive language skills

Conditioned Delusions: Reading Adaptation Following False Feedback is Modulated by Bilingualism

Critical periods cannot wait: visually driven phonetic encoding in the absence of hearing

Cross-Modal Transfer in Statistical Learning: Investigating Directionality under Unimodal Learning conditions

Dissociable dynamic effects of expectation during statistical learning across cortical layers

Does the left articulatory-motor cortex contribute to statistical language learning? A rTMS-EEG study

Double Trouble: The Learning of Multiple Mappings in the Context of Cross Situational Word Learning

Element duration biases statistical chunking across vision and audition

Exploration-Exploitation Strategy in Visual Statistical Learning: an EEG Study.

Exploring multiword chunks with multiple statistical dimensions.

Follow the Dot: A New Scalable Mouse-Tracking Method for Studying Sequence Learning in Real Time.

How Affix Order Affects Learning in Ambiguous Contexts

How does the statistical learning timeline change when sequences are different frequencies or when pauses are inserted into the stream?

Implicit Statistical Learning Through the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) Task: A Case of Multiple Regularities in the Sequence.

Individual Differences in Readers’ Sensitivity to Multiword Frequency in Naturalistic Settings

Investigating the role of the hippocampus in statistical learning in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy

Learning from cross-situational statistics under auditory dual-task load

Linguistic statistical regularities affect infants’ lexical processing commitment

Modality Effects in Word Segmentation: Group-Level Similarities and Individual Differences

Neural entrainment reflects attention-dependent tracking of visual statistical structure

Neural Evidence for Rapid Statistical Learning from Natural Speech in an Unfamiliar Language.

Obsessive-Compulsive Tendencies Modulate the Balance Between Statistical Learning and Cognitive Flexibility

Online Hierarchical Network Dynamics Underlying Beat-Informed Non-Adjacent Dependency Learning

Predictability in Production: Mandarin Classifier-Noun Selection and Optional Modification

Prediction error in the processing of non-binary pronouns: is novelty more costly than redistribution?

Rethinking forced-choice paradigms: Statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) as an assessment of statistical learning in autism

SemV: Words as Volumes in Semantic Space

Sensitivity to Word Predictability in Naturalistic Reading: Individual Differences and Adaptive Tuning

Similar errors, different updating: a mechanistic account of developmental differences in statistical learning

Speakers respond differently to statistical uncertainty about signals vs. messages

Statistical Learning and Word Segmentation in Norwegian Infants: No Evidence Across Dialectal Variability

Statistical learning defines which discourse biases guide pronoun interpretation

Statistical learning leads to abstract transfer of sequence bias

Statistical Learning of Grammar and Semantics in Adult L2 Acquisition: Evidence from Mandarin Classifier–Noun Combinations

Statistical learning of phonotactic probabilities through passive listening of a second language in adults

Statistical learning of syllable sequences and responses to violations: a joint MMN–ITPC EEG approach

The Association between Childhood Adversity and Statistical Learning Ability in Children: A Neuroimaging Study

The cortical dynamics of 'statistical hearing'

The interference of congruent and incongruent multimodal stimuli in statistical learning

Toddlers’ grammatical knowledge influences predictive language processing

Unlocking the Secrets of Multilingualism: How Individual Differences in Implicit Statistical Learning Associate with Metalinguistic Skills and Reading in Indian Multilingual Children.

09:00 - 09:50        Keynote Speaker 3: Nora Newcombe

09:50 - 10:50        Oral session 4:  SL and cognitive abilities II

09:50 - 10:10 (OS-4.1.) Distinct statistical learning mechanisms support the acquisition of adjacent and nonadjacent dependencies. Laura Batterink, Daisy Li & Daniela Herrera-Chaves

 10:10 - 10:30 (OS-4.2.) The role of attention in (statistical) learning differs across development. Amy Finn, Elena Greatti, Levi Antle & Davide Crepaldi

10:30 - 10:50 (OS-4.3.) How experience shapes attention: Divergent neural signatures of Statistical and Reward Learning. Carola Dolci, Tom Verguts, Elisa Santandrea & C. Nico Boehler

10:50 - 11:10        Poster Blitz III

A unified mechanism of statistical learning? Evidence from cross-modal integration during learning. Giulio Severijnen, Linda Drijvers & Davide Crepaldi

Investigating brain markers of visual statistical learning in school-aged children using magnetoencephalography frequency-tagged responses. Lauréline Fourdin, Vincent Wens, Oriane Van Dijck, Chiara Capparini, Xavier De Tiège & Julie Bertels

Multiscale Neural Signatures of Long-Lag Repetition Learning: A Simultaneous fNIRS–EEG Study. Jinglei Ren, Adam Noah, Xian Zhang, Vincent Gracco, Marc Joanisse, Aahana Bajracharya, Jay Rueckl, Augusto Buchweitz, Nabin Koirala, Joy Hirsch & ken Pugh

Individual Differences in Adaptation and Error Minimization During Statistical Learning: A Webcam-Based Eye-Tracking Study. Puyuan Zhang, Shelley Tong & Erin Ottmar

MEG and EEG evidence for statistical learning from acoustic and abstract rhythms. Lorenzo Titone & Lars Meyer

11:10 – 13:00       Poster Session III & Coffee break

A unified mechanism of statistical learning? Evidence from cross-modal integration during learning.

Assessing neural signatures of statistical learning: A meta-analysis of EEG/MEG studies

Benchmarking Long-Distance Statistical Learning in Simple Recurrent Networks

Beyond Word Familiarity: The Semantic Network Anchors Word Learning from Co-occurrence in Childhood

Categorical or scalar? Error-driven learning as a window on the nature of phonetic representations

Dialogic reading enhances neural prediction of young children

Distinct Neural Representations of Probability for Abstract and Item-Specific Information During Statistical Learning

Does Domain-General Statistical Learning Predict Perceptual Learning for Non-Canonical Speech?

Early response time Variability predicts Statistical Learning

EEG frequency tagging reveals preserved statistical learning in preterm children aged 4–6 years

Flexible statistical learning across modalities: Online and offline measures reveal different aspects of adaptation to changing regularities

Friends or Foes? The Interplay Between Statistical Learning and Executive Functions

Harnessing implicit statistical knowledge to optimize reward-based decisions

Individual Differences in Adaptation and Error Minimization During Statistical Learning: A Webcam-Based Eye-Tracking Study.

Individual Differences in Reading Comprehension are Related to Sensitivity to Predictability Effects During Connected Text Reading

Investigating brain markers of visual statistical learning in school-aged children using magnetoencephalography frequency-tagged responses.

Language Experience Modulates the Statistical Learning of Speech With and Without Lexical Cues

Learning What Matters: Readers Adapt to Reliable Sources of Information to Resolve Print-Speech Uncertainty in an Opaque Writing System

MEG and EEG evidence for statistical learning from acoustic and abstract rhythms.

Multilingualism and Statistical Learning

Multiscale Neural Signatures of Long-Lag Repetition Learning: A Simultaneous fNIRS–EEG Study.

Near-optimal auditory but suboptimal visual detection of temporal regularities

Readers' Sensitivity to Word-Length Combinations in Hebrew and English

Revisiting Statistical Learning in Transformer-Based Models

Rich Reader Phenotypes of Sensitivity to Language Statistics Explain Individual Differences and Tradeoffs in Reading

Same Sentences, Different Senses: How Input Modality Shapes Comprehension

Segmentation of an artificial language with conflicting statistical cues: Empirical and computational investigations

Statistical Learning Across the Lifespan: Dissociations between neural and behavioural markers

Statistical learning and abstract knowledge transfer in structured environments

Statistical learning and short-term memory of manual gestures: Evidence for stimulus-general and stimulus-specific processes

Statistical learning in language across multiple regularities: a micro-longitudinal study

Structure transfers, rules do not: Evidence from statistical learning across stimulus-response mappings

Swap distance minimization shapes the order of subject, object and verb in languages of the world

Tactile cues aligned with high-level linguistic features shape neural processing of speech in noise

The Alien Language Game: Investigating Modality Constraints on Statistical Learning in School-Aged Children

The Blueprint of Semantics: Zipf’s Laws of Meaning and the Evolution of Semanticity in Catalan Language Acquisition

The distributional statistics of acoustic and perceptual auditory dimensions affect sound detection

The Language of Mathematics: Can Statistical Learning also Predict Mathematical Development?

The role of feature predictability in modulating toddlers’ word extension strategies

The Role of Perceptual Salience in Cross-Situational Learning

Tracking Distributional Statistics in Turkish: Chunking Ability Explains Variability in Collocational Processing

Tracking Patterns Across Languages: Statistical Learning in Bilingual Babbling

Unraveling the impact of ADHD-like traits on the interplay between predictive processes and inhibitory control

What Statistical Learning Does and Doesn’t Learn

13:10 – 14:30       Break (Lunch on your own)

14:30 - 16:00        Symposium 4: SL and learning mechanisms

14:30 – 15:00 (S-4.1.)  Theme speaker Marco Marelli. Subtle but systematic: Form-meaning mapping in the processing of unfamiliar words

15:00 – 15:20 (S-4.2.)  Chunking is necessary, but not sufficient, to explain the time-course of statistical learning across sequence length, context, embedding, and position . Francesco Cabiddu, Mark Torrance, Robyn Griffiths, Jens Roeser, Sofia Tsitsopoulou & Gary Jones

15:20 – 15:40 (S-4.3.)  Learning regularities in noise engages both neural predictive activity and representational changes. Coumarane Tirou, Oussama Abdoun, Teodóra Vékony, Laure Tosatto, Andrea Brovelli, Marine Vernet, Dezso Németh & Romain Quentin

15:40 – 16:00 (S-4.4.)  Exploring sensitivity to network structures in sleeping neonates. Claire Njoo-Deplante, Lucas Benjamin, Marie Palu, Fosca Al Roumi & Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz

16:00 - 16:30        Coffee break

16:30 - 17:20        Early career talk Noam Siegelman

17:20 - 18:00        Closing remarks & Round table

For Conference Dinner Attendees Only:

20:00 – 20:20     Bus transfer San Sebastian – Conference Dinner

20:30 – 23:00     CONFERENCE DINNER

23:00 – 23:20     Bus transfer to San Sebastian

The conference will take place at the Palacio Miramar in Donostia - San Sebastián, the Basque Country, which is located adjacent to the sea and just a short 5-10 minute walk from the city center.

How to get there

Curiosity in human development: computational theories, experiments and applications in AI and education

A remarkable feat of children's development is their autonomy, open-endedness, flexibility and efficiency at learning diverse skills under strongly limited resources of time and energy. In this talk, I will explain why and how curiosity mechanisms play a crucial role in such capabilities, using a mix of computational theory,  AI models, and behavioural experiments to test predictions of these theories.

Personal Assistant

Lab Manager

BCBL Director. Ikerbasque Research Professor. Group Leader

BCBL Affiliated Researcher

Assistant Professor & Principle investigator,

BCBL Affiliated Researcher

Assistant Professor

Professor of Psychology