We thank Jennifer Hughes and Erinn Beck for their assistance and Richard Aslin for his comments on aspects of this research. This work was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant R01 HD35849 awarded to the first author.
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Sequence Learning in 4-Month-Old Infants: Do Infants Represent Ordinal Information?
Article first published online: 12 NOV 2009
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01369.x
© 2009, Copyright the Author(s). Journal Compilation © 2009, Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
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How to Cite
Lewkowicz, D. J. and Berent, I. (2009), Sequence Learning in 4-Month-Old Infants: Do Infants Represent Ordinal Information?. Child Development, 80: 1811–1823. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01369.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 12 NOV 2009
- Article first published online: 12 NOV 2009
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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.