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Effects of phonetically variable input (PVI) for processing instruction (PI) training and the number of training items were tested with a picture-selection eye-tracking task. Intermediate second language (L2) learners of French (n = 174) were tested before and after they received either a short (24 items), medium (48), or long (96) training on the causative structure with either single- or multivoice input. PI improved picture-selection accuracy from about 10% to above 50% regardless of the training size. Eye-tracking data showed a reduction in looks to the incorrect picture only after the short and medium training: it surfaced regardless of voice variability after the short training, whereas multivoice training led to a greater reduction after the medium training. Long training did not yield a reliable reduction of incorrect looks regardless of voice variability. Taken together, PVI does not hinder L2 syntactic learning. Learners may benefit more from a relatively shorter training with PVI.

To test the effects of talker variability and explicit instruction on the statistical learning of lexical tone, 80 monolingual English listeners were taught an artificial language that mimicked Mandarin's asymmetric distribution of syllable-tone co-occurrences. Training stimuli consisted of either speech from one talker or speech from four talkers. Participants were either never instructed or explicitly taught associations between phonemes (CVs), tones, and nonce symbols across four consecutive days. Learning was assessed by the accuracy of mouse clicks and eye movements to visual nonce symbols. Critical trials induced competition between the target symbol, which matched the acoustic input, and a competitor symbol that had a statistically more probable tone (but mismatched the acoustic input). Eye fixations indicated that participants were sensitive to syllable-tone co-occurrence probabilities even without explicit instruction of tone. The degree to which statistical knowledge was used to recognize words appeared to increase when participants processed more variable speech.

Two eye-tracking experiments tested (a) whether L2 learners benefit from the consistency of input modality (auditory instead of written processing instruction [PI] training) and (b) whether they benefit from training using the same voice as the test voice. Results confirmed a robust effect of PI training on picture-selection accuracy, yet the improvement did not differ between training modalities. Eye-tracking data revealed resilient looks to the incorrect (first noun = agent) picture even after training, demonstrating the challenge in tuning to the grammatical forms while processing auditory L2 input. The effect of voice familiarity was larger for the male voice, which had longer duration for the later cue ("à Marie/Pierre") than the female voice. Auditory PI training can be as effective as written PI training, but it does not immediately enhance learners' sensitivity to grammatical cues. However, learners may benefit from hearing a salient grammatical cue toward the end of the sentence.

While previous research has shown that processing instruction (PI) can more effectively facilitate the acquisition of target structures than traditional drill practice, the processing mechanism of PI has not been adequately examined because most assessment tasks have been offline. Using eye-tracking, this two-experiment study compared changes in processing patterns between two types of training: PI and traditional instruction (TI) on intermediate-level L2 learners' acquisition of the French causative. Both experiments used a pretraining/posttraining design involving a dichotomous scene selection eye-tracking task to measure eye-movement patterns and accuracy in picture selection while participants processed auditory sentences. Neither group received explicit information (EI) in Experiment 1 while both experimental groups in Experiment 2 received EI before processing sentences. Results of Experiment 1 revealed the PI group had significantly higher accuracy scores than the TI group. A change in eye-movement pattern was also observed after training for the PI group but not for the TI group. In Experiment 2, when both groups received EI, PI subjects were again significantly more accurate than TI subjects, but both groups' accuracy scores were not reliably higher than subjects in the PI and TI groups in Experiment 1 who did not receive EI. Eye-movement patterns in Experiment 2 showed that both TI and PI started to shift their gaze to the correct picture at the same point as PI subjects did in Experiment 1. This suggests that EI helped the TI group start entertaining the correct picture as a possible response sooner but the EI did not help the PI group process the target structure sooner than the TI group.