Children’s implicit learning of graphotactic and morphological regularities

In French, the transcription of the same sound can be guided by both probabilistic graphotactic constraints (e.g., /et/ is more often transcribed ette after -v than after -f) and morphological constraints (e.g., /et/ is always transcribed ette when used as a diminutive suffix). Three experiments showed that pseudo-word spellings of 8-to 11-year-old children and adults were influenced by both types of constraints. The influence of graphotactic regularities persisted when reliance on morphological rules was possible, without any falling off as a function of age. This suggests that rules are not abstracted, even after massive amounts of exposure to a rule-based material. These results can be accounted for by a statistical model of implicit learning.