Very young infants learn abstract rules in the visual modality.

Brock Ferguson,Sandra R. Waxman,Steven L. Franconeri,Manuel S. Malmierca

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0190185

Abstract

ing the structure or ‘rules’ underlying observed patterns is central to mature cognition, yet research with infants suggests this far-reaching capacity is initially restricted to certain stimuli. Infants successfully abstract rules from auditory sequences (e.g., language), but fail when the same rules are presented as visual sequences (e.g., shapes). We propose that this apparent gap between rule learning in the auditory and visual modalities reflects the distinct requirements of the perceptual systems that interface with cognition: The auditory system efficiently extracts patterns from sequences structured in time, but the visual system best extracts patterns from sequences structured in space. Here, we provide the first evidence for this proposal with adults in an abstract rule learning task. We then reveal strong developmental continuity: infants as young as 3 months of age also successfully learn abstract rules in the visual modality when sequences are structured in space. This provides the earliest evidence to date of abstract rule learning in any modality.

Highlights

Humans are adept pattern learners, tracking the co-occurrences and frequencies of input in myriad domains [1,2]
Post-hoc pairwise t-tests indicated that as predicted, participants were more accurate in the sequence elements (TSS) trials (M = 95.52%) than in either temporal plus spatial structure (TS) trials (M = 85.87%, MΔ = 9.65% [95% CI: 7.19, 12.11], t(35) = 7.98, p < .001, d = 1.33) or T trials (M = 86.34%, MΔ = 9.20% [95% CI: 6.25, 12.13], t(35) = 6.34, p < .001, d = 1.06)
Accuracy in TS and T trials did not significantly differ (MΔ = .46% [95% CI: -2.79, 3.71], t(35) = .29, p = .77, d = -.048)

Summary

Introduction

Humans are adept pattern learners, tracking the co-occurrences and frequencies of input in myriad domains [1,2]. A hallmark of higher-level rules is that they are not tied to the particular sequences of perceptual input from which they were gleaned but instead, are sufficiently abstract to be generalized to entirely novel elements [6] Infants draw on such rules early in development, as witnessed by their success in acquiring the rules of language [7], rules governing the behavior of physical objects [8], and rules guiding social interactions [9]. There is considerable debate concerning the origins of abstract rule learning in infancy, and the breadth of stimuli that the learning mechanism takes as input Central to this debate is the observation that human infants succeed in learning rules from some kinds of input but not others. This pattern—protracted rule learning from visual input relative to auditory input—has been interpreted as evidence that initially, abstract rule learning is possible only over a restricted range of stimuli [14,17,19]

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