A Behavioral and Computational Integration of Phonological, Short-Term Memory, and Vocabulary Acquisition Processes in Nonword Repetition

Theories of language acquisition propose an early and important role for perceptual processes, but often present these processes as separate from the short-term sequencing processes and long-term linguistic knowledge that also contribute to the development of language. Using nonword repetition as a measure that reflects the interaction of these processes, we present a computational model that integrates all three of these processes into a single system and examine the similarity between the relationship of these three processes found in the model and the relationship found in adolescent humans.