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Information from multiple modalities helps 5‐month‐olds learn abstract rules

Information from multiple modalities helps 5‐month‐olds learn abstract rules By 7 months of age, infants are able to learn rules based on the abstract relationships between stimuli ( Marcus et al ., 1999 ), but they are better able to do so when exposed to speech than to some other classes of stimuli. In the current experiments we ask whether multimodal stimulus information will aid younger infants in identifying abstract rules. We habituated 5‐month‐olds to simple abstract patterns (ABA or ABB) instantiated in coordinated looming visual shapes and speech sounds (Experiment 1), shapes alone (Experiment 2), and speech sounds accompanied by uninformative but coordinated shapes (Experiment 3). Infants showed evidence of rule learning only in the presence of the informative multimodal cues. We hypothesize that the additional evidence present in these multimodal displays was responsible for the success of younger infants in learning rules, congruent with both a Bayesian account and with the Intersensory Redundancy Hypothesis. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Developmental Science Wiley

Information from multiple modalities helps 5‐month‐olds learn abstract rules

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References (29)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Wiley Subscription Services
ISSN
1363-755X
eISSN
1467-7687
DOI
10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00794.x
pmid
19635078
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

By 7 months of age, infants are able to learn rules based on the abstract relationships between stimuli ( Marcus et al ., 1999 ), but they are better able to do so when exposed to speech than to some other classes of stimuli. In the current experiments we ask whether multimodal stimulus information will aid younger infants in identifying abstract rules. We habituated 5‐month‐olds to simple abstract patterns (ABA or ABB) instantiated in coordinated looming visual shapes and speech sounds (Experiment 1), shapes alone (Experiment 2), and speech sounds accompanied by uninformative but coordinated shapes (Experiment 3). Infants showed evidence of rule learning only in the presence of the informative multimodal cues. We hypothesize that the additional evidence present in these multimodal displays was responsible for the success of younger infants in learning rules, congruent with both a Bayesian account and with the Intersensory Redundancy Hypothesis.

Journal

Developmental ScienceWiley

Published: Jan 1, 2009

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