Yu, A. . 1 , Hsuan, U. . 1 , Lee, R. 2 , Tzeng, A. 3 , Hung, D. 1 & Wu, D. 1
1 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, Taiwan
2 MEG Laboratory, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
3 Center of Theoretical Science, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
Recent research has shown a correlation between individuals? statistical learning (SL) ability and their subsequent acquisition speed in learning a second language (L2). Previous cross-sectional data from our lab also supported that learning to read Chinese characters correlated with L2 learners? SL ability in the visual modality. In the present study, the longitudinal data from foreigners of alphabetic language origins were collected to test the relationship between VSL and Chinese literacy acquisition. For participants who continued formal Chinese courses, the improvement in Chinese literacy was higher than that of the participants who did not continue formal instructions. Critically, although the results did not reveal significant correlation between SL and the improvement of Chinese literacy in the subject pool as a whole, further analysis indicated that VSL scores significantly correlated with literacy improvement in those individuals who did not continue formal Chinese courses, but this relationship was not observed in those who continued to take formal Chinese courses. Such results imply that SL serves as an important cognitive foundation to extract the implicit regularity embedded in L2, while formal instructions may significantly benefit L2 learners, especially for those with low SL ability, by providing explicit structures of L2 materials.