Abstract
To account for infants’ perceptual and cognitive development, the constructivist model proposes that learning a new object depends on the capability of processing simpler lower-level units, and then integrating these units into more complex higher-level units based on their relationships, such as regular co-occurrence. Here, we demonstrate that the process of associating visual and auditory attributes to build a new multisensory object representation is not only observed in the course of development, but also in the course of infants’ in-the-moment information processing. After a brief familiarization session of learning two pairs of novel audiovisual stimuli, 15-month-old infants showed two components in pupil dilations over time: A rapid dilation was observed when processing perceptually novel compared to familiar stimuli, and a slower dilation was observed when processing novel combinations of familiar stimuli. However, in 10-month-old infants, only the effect elicited by novel stimuli was observed. Our results therefore demonstrate that detecting perceptual novelty occurred earlier than detecting association novelty in infants’ information processing. These results support the view that infants perceive newly-learned objects by processing their constituent attributes and then integrating these components, as suggested by the constructivist model.
Highlights
To account for infants’ perceptual and cognitive development, the constructivist model proposes that learning a new object depends on the capability of processing simpler lower-level units, and integrating these units into more complex higher-level units based on their relationships, such as regular co-occurrence
We aimed to demonstrate that the simple-to-complex hierarchical processing principles proposed in the constructivist model occur over the developmental time course and in infants’ in-the-moment information processing
We use the novel index of pupillary responses to demonstrate a more fine-grained effect of infants’ association learning: While 10-month-old infants were able to detect the presentation of new stimuli, only at the age of 15 months did infants detect novel pairings of familiar features presented crossmodally[7,8,28]
Summary
To account for infants’ perceptual and cognitive development, the constructivist model proposes that learning a new object depends on the capability of processing simpler lower-level units, and integrating these units into more complex higher-level units based on their relationships, such as regular co-occurrence. Our results demonstrate that detecting perceptual novelty occurred earlier than detecting association novelty in infants’ information processing These results support the view that infants perceive newly-learned objects by processing their constituent attributes and integrating these components, as suggested by the constructivist model. A classic experimental procedure to investigate infants’ development of association learning utilizes looking time measures embedded in a switch paradigm These measures are based on the finding that infants typically prefer to look at novel or surprising stimuli rather than familiar stimuli (novelty preference)[16]. Trial as compared to the familiar trial, suggesting that they are only sensitive to the changing of familiar features rather than their combinations This developmental time course of association learning is consistent with the simple-to-complex process proposed by the constructivist model. We used pupil dilation as a more fine-grained measure in order to provide a better understanding of infants’ in-the-moment information processing during association learning
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