title: Sequence learning in 4-month-old infants: do infants represent ordinal information?
abstract: This study investigated how 4-month-old infants represent sequences: Do they track the statistical relations among specific sequence elements (e.g., AB, BC) or do they encode abstract ordinal positions (i.e., B is second)? Infants were habituated to sequences of 4 moving and sounding elements-3 of the elements varied in their ordinal position while the position of 1 target element remained invariant (e.g., ABCD, CBDA)-and then were tested for the detection of changes in the target's position. Infants detected an ordinal change only when it disrupted the statistical co-occurrence of elements but not when statistical information was controlled. It is concluded that 4-month-olds learn the order of sequence elements by tracking their statistical associations but not their invariant ordinal position.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA. lewkowic@fau.edu
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Lewkowicz
authors.forename: Iris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Berent
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003210:Concept Formation; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D005795:Generalization, Stimulus; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012691:Serial Learning