A literature Review
2012
Introduction
After Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis (1986, 1990) claimed that noticing is the necessary and sufficient condition for intake to occur, the debate on noticing and its effects of second language learning has motivated a lot of research and theoretical discussion in SLA. However, nowadays, the discussion does not seem settled and due to the great relevance these concepts have for SLA research, it seems convenient to review and clarify them.
The purpose of the present literature review is to inform the reader about the debate in SLA regarding the concepts of noticing and acquisition, focusing on the different attempts to operationalize the constructs.
This paper is organized in the following manner: First it untangles the concepts of attention and noticing from other similar and related ideas such as consciousness and awareness; Second, it reviews positions about the critical question ‘is learning without noticing or attention possible?’, and presents some alternative issues or questions that the debate have risen. And it finally reviews for the some relevant research findings in SLA research on noticing.
Method
The present literature review include works up to found in University of Toronto, OISE library catalogue, as well as articles in the databases of: CBCA Education, ERIC, FRANCIS, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, Proquest Education Journals & Psyinfo. The article search was carried out on the search engine Proquest, using boolean search with a combination of the words “noticing” and/or “attention”, and consciousness and or/ awareness, plus ‘second or foreign language education’, resulting in 145 citations, from which only those regarding studies on noticing and attention and SLE which discuss about the concepts were included, while articles where noticing and attention were only used to draw conclusions in research on other topics, in SLA were excluded, and so were articles related to ADHD or other learning disabilities.
Untangling noticing and attention
Several attempts to define the construct of noticing and attention in SLA literature seem to be embedded in a broader discussion about consciousness. From this debate, two trends can be identified: one related to awareness (Schmidt, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995; Tomlin and Villa, 1994), and the other one regarding the process vs. product dichotomy (VanPatten, 1990, 1994).
Attention
Schmidt (1994, 1995) operationalizes the ambiguous construct of consciousness by distinguishing specific processes: consciousness as intentionality, as attention, as awareness and as control. Drawing on psychological assumptions, Schmidt (2001) describes attention as limited in capacity, selective, and partially voluntary; he also portrays it as the door to consciousness, or as a filtering system, facilitating or inhibiting perceived stimuli to be further processed in the mind.
Moreover, based on information-processing models, Schmidt (1990) claims that short- term memory can be equated with consciousness, and that attention constitutes the link between
short-term memory and stimuli that is perceived. Put another way, attention carries stimuli into consciousness, to eventually be stored in long-term memory. Similarly, models of automatic/ controlled processing, identify consciousness as control, which always requires attention. In this sense, attention makes learning possible since it allows control processes to become automatic.
Similarly, VanPatten (1994) also recognizes the role of awareness in attention, but he criticizes the use of psychological operationalization of the construct, since insights from research in psychology do not use real language on their studies, but rather artificial grammar or finite state grammar, which do not represent the complexities of real meaningful language; Also he claims that SLA needs to develop their own knowledge about attention, by studying the construct in learning real languages.
Also drawing on psychology, but using a more SLA approach, Tomlin and Villa offer a definition of attention by dividing it into three mechanisms, which are the following: Alertness, Orientation and Detection. Alertness is a state of predisposition for receiving external stimuli. It influences the selection of stimuli and it can be manipulated and assessed. More alertness may lead to an increase of rate at which stimuli is perceived, however, too much alertness might affect accuracy of processing, leading to errors. In SLA contexts, Alertness can be considered as a learner's motivation, interest or readiness (p. 297), whereas orientation means a certain direction. It implies that some parts of the stimuli will be attended and others ignored or inhibited. If attention is oriented toward a certain item, that item will be detected. Detection is the cognitive registration in memory of particular segments of stimuli that allows further processing of them. Detecting depletes almost all attentional resources and therefore, detecting one aspect of stimuli will inhibit the detection of other.
Tomlin & Villa claim that none of these processes require awareness, and that detection can even occur at an unconscious level. They conclude that attention is necessary for awareness, but attention can work without awareness; and that awareness can enhance alertness and orientation but not detection.
It is important to note in this account, that Tomlin and Villa, though acknowledging the crucial role of these three mechanisms, they do not equate these with learning, nor do they claim that these are sufficient for learning to occur, but rather facilitate further processing of input and its eventual consequent learning.
Noticing
It seems that noticing has been defined as the conscious experience of attention, or focal attention, that can therefore, be reported by subjects. In this sense, noticing seems to be attention plus awareness, however, in the untangling of constructs, it seems that different level of awareness produce different concepts.
In his Noticing Hypothesis, Schmidt (1990, 1993, 1994, 1995) claims that noticing is the necessary and sufficient condition for input to become intake, and defines “noticing” as low level awareness and nearly equates the term with attention, but claims that when we are aware of what is in our focal attention, then we are noticing. Schmidt’s (1990) Noticing is stimuli that goes
beyond perception, it is stimuli in the focal awareness that is subjectively experienced. When noticing something, it is possible to report it, but failure to report the experience of noticing does not imply the lack of it. Furthermore, If the level of awareness is greater, so we engage in analysis or association with previous experience, then we are in presence of understanding, a different process that requires a higher level of awareness.
Therefore we can say that Schmidt’s Noticing is an experience of low or medium awareness, since it requires more than pre-attentive mechanisms, but if more awareness is involved, it turns to something different. From my perspective, it seems that noticing is the first step to learning, since it allows us to later engage in higher processing of input. It is also important to note that Schmidt’s noticing is different from Swain’s concept of Noticing, which in the Output Hypothesis, refers to detecting a gap, a lack of knowledge of ability in one’s Interlanguage. In this sense, we can say that Swain’s Noticing is introspective, whereas, Schmidt’s noticing refers to noticing something in input or stimuli, a more external idea of the concept.
On the other trend, VanPatten (1994) clarifies that consciousness must be understood from the perspectives of process, product, context and purpose, and that it is in the processing of input where attention becomes key. He underscores that attention is limited and does require a certain level of consciousness, and claims that what is really relevant to research in SLA is what learners attend to in the input. This way, the old implicit/explicit knowledge and acquisition/ learning distinctions are better understood by determining whether attention is on meaning or form.
Overall, there seems to be a mild consensus on the role of attention in learning a second language, and the distinction of different mechanisms implied in the processing of input. However, what remains is the debate on the role of awareness in learning, the need to define an SLA-related construct to attention and noticing, more bound to the complexities of language learning; and the old discussion of whether there can be learning without attention and noticing, which is the topic of the next section.
Can there be learning without noticing or attention?
There seems to be a trend in SLA literature towards reformulating this question. However two positions are clearly identified, those who reject the possibility of unconscious learning, and those who consider it plausible.
Aligning to the first position, Schmidt (1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001) denies the possibility of what he refers to as subliminal learning, based on two kinds of arguments: his own research, and a methodological criticism to research that claims unconscious learning to be possible.
Regarding his own research (Frota & Schmidt, 1986), Schmidt claims that noticing highly correlates with learning. The study recorded his own experience learning Brazilian Portuguese in Brazil. He kept a diary where he reported the things he noticed about language and was recorded on their conversations with native speakers. Results show that Schmidt’s output did not show all the forms available in class or in the input, but rather exactly those that he reported to have noticed. Schmidt claims that this study provides evidence of the connection between noticing and the emergence of linguistic forms in output.
Regarding methodological issues in other research, he argues that although methods to measure attention, noticing and intake (e.g. like diaries or think-aloud protocols) provide valuable information about what learners are aware of or have noticed, they overshadow the question of whether unattended stimuli translate in learning. He also claims that other techniques implying computerized measurements such as mouse-clicking and eye-movement tracking, only allow us to know learners' orientation, but not detection.
Additionally, he rejects evidence in psychology of subliminal learning, i.e. learning below the threshold of awareness. According to him, results from these investigations demonstrates]\ that although perceived, subliminal stimuli does not impact behavior or motivation at a higher level. Also, experiments frequently use previously known items, such as words in participants’ native language, and what the results really show is pre-attentive perception or short-term memory storage, which altogether is not equatable to learning a second or foreign language, because the latter is composed of novel items, in complex systems, that must commit to long- term storage and translate in consequent use.
Moreover, Schmidt (2001) acknowledges some methods to measure non-conscious registration v.s. conscious noticing like verbal reports or priming. However, he argues most researchers wrongly assume that an inaccurate verbal report equals poor detection, disregarding the possibility that, even when detection occurs, some learners are simply not able to put their experience into words. He also criticizes the inferences researchers make from the priming method, since this method grounds on previously perceived stimuli, and not on learning new items.
In summary, Schmidt claims that evidence for unconscious learning has been rather assumed than proved, and therefore, he moves away from a zero-point question position into a more spectrum view. He again turns to psychology, which denies learning without attention, and reviews some research (e.g. Curran and Keele, 1993) that suggest that it is the degree of attention which yields degrees of learning, i.e. the more we pay attention, the more we learn. He takes this claim to SLA pointing out other work (Van Patten, 1994) that suggests that different features of language, like grammar, might require greater amounts of attention, while others might need less.
Similarly, VanPatten (1994) replaces the common dichotomy in research of conscious/ unconscious, and explicit vs. implicit learning, since according to him, this debate focuses on products and does not account for how linguistic features are processed in learners' minds and that most research at that time measured knowledge and equated the type of knowledge to a certain type of attention. In other words, when learners were able to articulate rules (product), it was assumed that they were consciously processing input (process). Furthermore, he claims that in order to research attention, its measurement must always be linked with comprehension, since learners always go for meaning first. And he proposes two main hypothesis regarding the way learners allocate attention when learning features of a language:
H1: Learners process meaning from input before they process it for form.
H2: In order for learner to process form that is not meaningful, they must be able to process informational or communicative content at no or little cost to attention (p. 32).
In this sense, VanPatten though aligning with the position of no unconscious learning, also avoids the question of whether learning without attention is possible, and instead, focuses on what learners attend to in the input, and how this process unfolds.
On the opposite position, Tomlin and Villa’s model of attention claims that detection leads to processing and learning, although detection can happen with or without awareness, this implying that unconscious learning is possible.
Additionally, Truscott (1998) challenges Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis, claiming that its foundations are weak, since evidence in cognitive psychology regarding attention and consciousness is inconclusive. He argues that research on attention to tasks and information only demonstrates that attention is beneficial, but not necessary or even sufficient. He also claims that the Noticing Hypothesis is vague and difficult to interpret and operationalize. He argues that their foundations are more related to the lack of evidence of the possibility of subliminal learning, than on unequivocal evidence of the necessity of awareness in learning. Furthermore, he criticizes that the Noticing Hypothesis does not ground on a clear singular view of language and, therefore it is incapable of making predictions. For example, he claims that the Noticing Hypothesis does not account for which specific aspects of grammar or lexis must be noticed in input, and adds that most of the examples provided by Schmidt (1995) seem to be more clearly explained through his own concept of understanding, rather than noticing.
Although thought-provoking, Truscott’s argument seem to be directed only to the psychological evidence Schmidt uses to formulate the Noticing Hypothesis, and he disregards that the main source of evidence he used was his own study (Schmidt, 1986) and the correspondence of attention, awareness and learning.
Evidence of noticing and its relationship to learning in SLA
Evidence from research regarding Noticing and SLA that was included in this review can be classified in three groups: evidence about what and how to prompt noticing, evidence about how noticing and attention work during input processing, and evidence about the relationship between noticing and L2 learning.
Prompting Noticing
In a classroom-based quasi-experimental study, Bao et al. (2011) found that certain types of recasts, like rising intonation, can benefit noticing. In their study with adult ESL learners, two main methods were used to measure noticing, stimulated recall and uptake measure, which consisted in registering a learner’s response to recast, either on self-repair or a failed attempt to do so.
One specific finding relevant to the Noticing debate is that stimulated recall was much better able to elicit instances of noticing, than the uptake measurement, suggesting that, verbal reports, as account of the subject experience of noticing are still valid in research.
How noticing works
VanPatten (1990) claims that attention to meaning and form in the input compete. In this sense, if learners are required to attend to form, overall comprehension will decrease if simultaneous attention is required to both aspects of language in the input. He hypothesizes that since attention is limited in capacity, it is only when learners automatize meaning comprehension they are able to focus their attention on formal aspects of input. i.e. higher levels of second language proficiency should allow learners to notice more form in the input.
In his experimental study with university level students of Spanish as a foreign language, he required participants to listen to a monolog in Spanish and check every time they heard a certain target form. Control group was required to listen only for content, and after the treatment all participants’s comprehension was tested by a free-recall written test, which was scored according to the quantity of ideas learners were able to recall.
Results show that VanPatten hypotheses were correct, since ANOVA displayed that comprehension was negatively affected by attention to form, but that this problem is less serious if learners’ proficiency is higher. Regarding language features, those related to morphology seem to be more disruptive in processing meaning, than are lexical items.
However, although this study provides insights about the way attention is allocated during input processing, it does not directly account for the crucial relationship between noticing and learning, a topic which is explored in the section below.
Noticing and L2 learning
In a quasi experimental study (Mackey, 2006), interactional feedback was found to prompt noticing and lead to L2 development. Interestingly, the aspect most prone to development after noticing was in this case, questions. Thus providing some insight on the role of noticing in learning formal aspects of an L2.
Mackey based on Tomlin and Villa’s criticism about the coarse nature of noticing measurement and developed a triangulation method to explore the role of noticing in L2 learning. The study was carried out with 28 ESL university students in U.S., all in the higher- intermediate level. Participants were divided into two groups with a one teacher each, and the target forms were questions, plurals and past tense.
The treatment consisted in TBL activities set up as games about american T.V. were participants asked and answered questions to each other. In the experimental group the teacher offered interactional feedback, while in the control group the teacher did not.
Noticing, in this study, was operationalized as “a learner’s report indicating a mismatch between the target language form and the learner’s non-targetlike production or comprehension” (p. 413) therefore following Swain’s idea of “noticing the gap” in the Output Hypothesis. And it was measured in 4 ways: journals, oral stimulated record using the videotaped lessons, written responses about classroom activities in their L1, and written responses on an L2 questionnaire. A pre test and post test elicited the target structures in descriptions of events where contexts and clues were given. Answers were coded according to participants’ level of awareness, assuming that a poor report of noticing did not mean lack of noticing.
Mackey concluded that Interactional feedback does prompt noticing of forms in the input, and furthermore, participants that reported noticing forms in the input, were found to use those forms in the immediate post test, thus lending evidence that noticing leads to intake.
Similarly, in a recent pilot study, Godfroid et al. (2010) measure spontaneous noticing (i.e. learners’ processing of input without teachers instructing them to do so) in meaning focused reading and its relationship with pseudo-words uptake.
Godfroid et al. align with the idea of measuring noticing while embedded in comprehension (VanPatten, 1994) and the further transportation of noticed items to uptake, following Schmidt's ideas. Therefore, target items in the study, i.e. pseudo-words, were embedded in real L1 paragraphs.
Researchers used a variety of methods: Eye-movement tracker was used to measure noticing, assuming that eye-fixation denotes focal attention; stimulated recall to elicit qualitative data, regarding the subjective experience of participants and a vocabulary discrimination post- test to measure intake.
Results reveal that, although almost accurately, participants were able to identify the previously encountered words, thus, meaning that what one notices generates at least a short memory trace, leading researchers to conclude that noticing does lead to intake. However, Godfroid et al. caution readers that although eye-fixation and memory trace seem to be linked, there is no warranty that only this amount of attention leads to learning, since we ignore the depth of processing participants engaged with when encountering new words. It is highly possible that deep processing of noticed items is what leads to intake, and not noticing itself.
Conclusion
The present paper has reviewed the theoretical debate regarding attention and noticing in the context of SLA and their role in learning. Although it has been more than twenty years since the Noticing Hypothesis was proposed, it seems that consensus has not been reached regarding whether attention is mandatory for learning to occur. However, the debate seem to move towards weaker versions or positions in which noticing is necessary, but not the only requirement for learning (Cross, 2002).
In light of these scenario, it seems wise to look at results from research on noticing more cautiously, and follow suggestion of moving from questions that deals in absolutes, towards a more spectral vision of phenomena to be applied both in research design and research and interpretation of evidence.
References
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