Linguistic evidence suggests that syllables like "bdam" (with stop-stop clusters) are less preferred than "bzam" (with stop-fricative combinations). Here, we demonstrate that English speakers manifest similar preferences despite no direct experience with either structure. Experiment 1 elicited syllable count for auditory…

Infants' disposition to learn repetitions in the input structure has been demonstrated in pattern generalization (e.g., learning the pattern ABB from the token "ledidi"). This study tested whether a repetition advantage can also be found in lexical learning (i.e., learning the word "lele" vs. "ledi"). Twenty-four…