Development of ordinal sequence perception in infancy

Abstract

Perception of the ordinal position of a sequence element is critical to many cognitive and motor functions. Here, the prediction that this ability is based on a domain-general perceptual mechanism and, thus, that it emerges prior to the emergence of language was tested. Infants were habituated with sequences of moving/sounding objects and then tested for the ability to perceive the invariant ordinal position of a single element (Experiment 1) or the invariant relative ordinal position of two adjacent elements (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 tested 4- and 6-month-old infants and showed that 4-month-old infants focused on conflicting low-level sequence statistics and, therefore, failed to detect the ordinal position information but that 6-month-old infants ignored the statistics and detected the ordinal position information. Experiment 2 tested 6-, 8-, and 10-month-old infants and showed that only 10-month-old infants detected relative ordinal position information and that they could only accomplish this with the aid of concurrent statistical cues. Together, these results indicate that a domain-general ability to detect ordinal position information emerges during infancy and that its initial emergence is preceded and facilitated by the earlier emergence of the ability to detect statistical cues.

Infants’ learning of non‐adjacent regularities from visual sequences

“…Our ability to rapidly extract structured sequential information from the environment underpins many complex behaviors—from language development and social interaction to intuitive decision‐making (e.g., Lewkowicz, 2013). Processing of sequential information is critical to adapt to a spatiotemporally bounded environment, and many studies investigated its ontogenetic and phylogenetic roots (Wilson et al, 2018).…”

Active Drumming Experience Increases Infants’ Sensitivity to Audiovisual Synchrony during Observed Drumming Actions

“…[ 9 – 10 ]). Lewkowicz [ 11 ] claims that “various findings on the effects of early experience demonstrate unequivocally that the young nervous system is highly plastic and that it depends on exposure to temporally and spatially aligned multisensory inputs for the development of normal multisensory functions” (p. 6). This position is supported by a variety of studies (in both animal models and special populations, such as children born deaf and later receiving cochlear implants) suggesting that limited input from one of the senses early in development limits sensitivity to multisensory integration even when that sense is later recovered (e.g.…”

Learning of hierarchical serial patterns emerges in infancy

“…For example, these studies have found that infants younger than 8 months of age can detect adjacent FIGURE 3 Mean duration of looking at the hierarchical and non-hierarchical patterns in the Familiar and Generalization test trials, respectively, in the 8-to 10-and 12-to 14-month-old infants in Experiment 1. Error bars indicate SEM and asterisks indicate a statistically significant difference in looking at the two types of patterns sequence statistics but that they do not detect ordinal position information nor simple rules (Frank, Slemmer, Marcus, & Johnson, 2009;Lewkowicz, 2013;Lewkowicz & Berent, 2009;Marcus et al, 1999). Therefore, we predicted that 4-to 6-month-old infants would not exhibit successful learning and generalization of the hierarchical serial patterns presented in Experiment 1.…”

“…As noted earlier, prior studies have found that relatively young infants generally only exhibit the simplest forms of pattern learning. For example, these studies have found that infants younger than 8 months of age can detect adjacent sequence statistics but that they do not detect ordinal position information nor simple rules (Frank, Slemmer, Marcus, & Johnson, ; Lewkowicz, ; Lewkowicz & Berent, ; Marcus et al, ). Therefore, we predicted that 4‐ to 6‐month‐old infants would not exhibit successful learning and generalization of the hierarchical serial patterns presented in Experiment 1.…”

“…For example, it has been found that infants can learn adjacent and non‐adjacent statistics regardless of whether the statistics specify sequences consisting of nonsense syllables (Gómez, ; Gómez & Maye, ; Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, ), musical tones (Saffran, Johnson, Aslin, & Newport, ), abstract shapes (Fiser & Aslin, ; Kirkham, Slemmer, & Johnson, ; Kirkham, Slemmer, Richardson, & Johnson, ; Marcovitch & Lewkowicz, ), or abstract shapes and sounds (Lewkowicz & Berent, ). Finally, it has been found that infants can perceive and learn ordinal sequential relations specified either by words (Mandel, Nelson, & Jusczyk, ) or abstract objects and their sounds (Lewkowicz, ) and that they can also learn simple reduplication rules such as AAB or ABA (Gerken, ; Gómez & Gerken, ; Marcus, Vijayan, Rao, & Vishton, ; Saffran, Pollak, Seibel, & Shkolnik, ).…”