Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Rich analysis and rational models: inferring individual behavior from infant looking data

Rich analysis and rational models: inferring individual behavior from infant looking data Studies of infant looking times over the past 50 years have provided profound insights about cognitive development, but their dependent measures and analytic techniques are quite limited. In the context of infants' attention to discrete sequential events, we show how a Bayesian data analysis approach can be combined with a rational cognitive model to create a rich data analysis framework for infant looking times. We formalize (i) a statistical learning model, (ii) a parametric linking between the learning model's beliefs and infants' looking behavior, and (iii) a data analysis approach and model that infers parameters of the cognitive model and linking function for groups and individuals. Using this approach, we show that recent findings from Kidd, Piantadosi and Aslin () of a U‐shaped relationship between look‐away probability and stimulus complexity even holds within infants and is not due to averaging subjects with different types of behavior. Our results indicate that individual infants prefer stimuli of intermediate complexity, reserving attention for events that are moderately predictable given their probabilistic expectations about the world. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Developmental Science Wiley

Rich analysis and rational models: inferring individual behavior from infant looking data

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/rich-analysis-and-rational-models-inferring-individual-behavior-from-QXakXSaTre

References (104)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISSN
1363-755X
eISSN
1467-7687
DOI
10.1111/desc.12083
pmid
24750256
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Studies of infant looking times over the past 50 years have provided profound insights about cognitive development, but their dependent measures and analytic techniques are quite limited. In the context of infants' attention to discrete sequential events, we show how a Bayesian data analysis approach can be combined with a rational cognitive model to create a rich data analysis framework for infant looking times. We formalize (i) a statistical learning model, (ii) a parametric linking between the learning model's beliefs and infants' looking behavior, and (iii) a data analysis approach and model that infers parameters of the cognitive model and linking function for groups and individuals. Using this approach, we show that recent findings from Kidd, Piantadosi and Aslin () of a U‐shaped relationship between look‐away probability and stimulus complexity even holds within infants and is not due to averaging subjects with different types of behavior. Our results indicate that individual infants prefer stimuli of intermediate complexity, reserving attention for events that are moderately predictable given their probabilistic expectations about the world.

Journal

Developmental ScienceWiley

Published: Jan 1, 2014

There are no references for this article.