The roles of item repetition and position in infants' abstract rule learning

Abstract

We asked whether 11- and 14- month-old infants' abstract rule learning, an early form of analogical reasoning, is susceptible to processing constraints imposed by limits in attention and memory for sequence position. We examined 11- and 14- month-old infants' learning and generalization of abstract repetition rules ("repetition anywhere," Experiment 1 or "medial repetition," Experiment 2) and ordering of specific items (edge positions, Experiment 3) in 4-item sequences. Infants were habituated to sequences containing repetition- and/or position-based structure and then tested with "familiar" vs. "novel" (random) sequences composed of new items. Eleven-month-olds (N = 40) failed to learn abstract repetition rules, but 14-month-olds (N = 40) learned rules under both conditions. In Experiment 3, 11-month-olds (N = 20) learned item edge positions in sequences identical to those in Experiment 2. We conclude that infant sequence learning is constrained by item position in similar ways as in adults.

Keywords: Abstract rule learning; Analogical reasoning; Infant learning; Perceptual primitives; Sequence learning.

Figure 1:

Schematic depiction of habituation and test sequences for Experiment 1. The top row represents the habituation sequence, the middle row represents the familiar test sequence, and the bottom row represents the novel (random) test sequence. See text for details.

Figure 2:

Looking times, novelty preferences, and recovery scores for Experiment 1 to test for a “repetition anywhere” rule. Top: 11-month-olds. Bottom: 14-month-olds. * p < .05. Error bars = SEM.

Figure 3:

Schematic depiction of habituation and test sequences for Experiments 2 (top section) and 3 (bottom section). Within each section, the top row represents the habituation sequence, the middle row represents the familiar test sequence, and the bottom row represents the novel (random) test sequence. See text for details.

Figure 4:

Looking times, novelty preferences, and recovery scores for Experiment 2 to test for a “medial repetition” rule. Top: 11-month-olds. Bottom: 14-month-olds. * p < .05. Error bars = SEM.

Figure 5:

Looking times, novelty preferences, and recovery scores for Experiment 3 to test for 11-montholds’ sensitivity to items at edge positions in sequence. * p < .05. Error bars = SEM.