Second language acquisition of grammatical rules: The effects of learning condition, rule difficulty, and executive function Rivera Zurita, Marta Paolieri, Daniela Martínez Iniesta, Antonio José Pérez Muñoz, Ana Isabel Bajo Molina, María Teresa Second language learning Individual differences Context of learning Proactive control Rule difficulty Executive functions Learning a new language is an important goal that many individuals find difficult to achieve, particularly during adulthood. Several factors have related this variability to different extrinsic (learning condition, difficulty of the materials) and intrinsic (cognitive abilities) factors, but the interaction between them is barely known. In two experiments, participants learned English grammar rules in intentional (Experiment 1) or explicit (Experiment 2), and incidental learning-contexts. Overall, results of this study indicated that intentional-explicit conditions benefitted rule-learning, as compared to incidental conditions. This benefit was mainly present when participants were learning an easy-rule; explicit and incidental learning did not differ in the case of participants learning a difficult rule (Experiment 2). Moreover, individual differences in executive functioning predicted successful learning in interaction with difficulty. When learning an easy-rule, proactive control facilitated intentional learning. In contrast, when participants were learning a complex-rule, incidental learning was enhanced by lower involvement of proactive control. 2023-02-10T12:58:45Z 2023-02-10T12:58:45Z 2023-01-18 journal article Rivera, M... [et al.] (2023). Second language acquisition of grammatical rules: The effects of learning condition, rule difficulty, and executive function. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1-14. doi:[10.1017/S1366728922000815] https://hdl.handle.net/10481/79830 10.1017/S1366728922000815 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional Cambridge University Press