Interactions Among Declarative and Procedural Memory Systems, Different Linguistic Structures, and the Efficacy of Different Corrective Feedback Types

Abstract

This study investigated the interactions among different cognitive abilities, linguistic structures, and the efficacy of different corrective feedback (CF) types. The cognitive abilities examined were declarative and procedural memory. The target linguistic structures were English regular and irregular past tense forms. In terms of the relationships between English past tense forms and the two memory systems, the declarative and procedural (D/P) model (Ullman, 2020) posits that regular past tense forms are learned in procedural memory while irregular past tense forms are learned in declarative memory. However, these relationships have not been investigated for second language learners. The participants were divided into recast, explicit correction, metalinguistic prompt groups. Second language learning was measured using an untimed grammaticality judgment task (UGJT) and an elicited imitation task (EIT). The results showed that procedural memory significantly predicted the UGJT posttest scores for regular past tense forms in the metalinguistic prompt group, while declarative memory significantly predicted the EIT posttest scores for irregular past tense forms in the recast group. These results were consistent with the predictions of the D/P model that the learning of regular past tense forms is related to procedural memory, whereas that of irregular past tense forms is related to declarative memory, although relationships were not observed for all the treatment groups.