Statistical inference and sensitivity to sampling in 11-month-old infants.
Research on initial conceptual knowledge and research on early statistical learning mechanisms have been, for the most part, two separate enterprises. We report a study with 11-month-old infants investigating whether they are sensitive to sampling conditions and whether they can integrate intentional information in a statistical inference task. Previous studies found that infants were able to make inferences from samples to populations, and vice versa [Xu, F., & Garcia, V. (2008). Intuitive statistics by 8-month-old infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 5012-5015]. We found that when employing this statistical inference mechanism, infants are sensitive to whether a sample was randomly drawn from a population or not, and they take into account intentional information (e.g., explicitly expressed preference, visual access) when computing the relationship between samples and populations. Our results suggest that domain-specific knowledge is integrated with statistical inference mechanisms early in development.
Department of Psychology, 2136 West Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BCV6K1Z4, Canada. fei@psych.ubc.ca
Fei
F
Xu
Stephanie
S
Denison
D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology