The Persistence of Priming: Exploring Long‐lasting Syntactic Priming Effects in Children and Adults

The implicit learning account of syntactic priming proposes that the same mechanism underlies and language development, providing a link between child adult processing. present experiment tested predictions this by comparing persistence effects in children adults. Four-year-olds adults first described transitive events after hearing primes, constituting an exposure phase established for passives. effect was measured test as participants further but no longer heard primes. Their production passives compared to baseline group who pictures without any Neither immediate nor long-term differed both showed significant persistent when occurred immediately short delay separated phase. implications these results are discussed.