title: TRACX2: a connectionist autoencoder using graded chunks to model infant visual statistical learning.
abstract: Even newborn infants are able to extract structure from a stream of sensory inputs; yet how this is achieved remains largely a mystery. We present a connectionist autoencoder model, TRACX2, that learns to extract sequence structure by gradually constructing chunks, storing these chunks in a distributed manner across its synaptic weights and recognizing these chunks when they re-occur in the input stream. Chunks are graded rather than all-or-nothing in nature. As chunks are learnt their component parts become more and more tightly bound together. TRACX2 successfully models the data from five experiments from the infant visual statistical learning literature, including tasks involving forward and backward transitional probabilities, low-salience embedded chunk items, part-sequences and illusory items. The model also captures performance differences across ages through the tuning of a single-learning rate parameter. These results suggest that infant statistical learning is underpinned by the same domain-general learning mechanism that operates in auditory statistical learning and, potentially, in adult artificial grammar learning.This article is part of the themed issue 'New frontiers for statistical learning in the cognitive sciences'.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognition and Computation, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck University of London, London, UK d.mareschal@bbk.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Denis
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9828-9548
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mareschal
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Etude de l'Apprentissage et du Développement, CNRS UMR 5022, Univeristé de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Dijon, France robert.french@u-bourgogne.fr.
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: French
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D007858:Learning; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: chunking; connectionist modelling; infant; statistical learning