Memory constraints on infants’ cross-situational statistical learning

• Published in: Cognition Vol. 127; no. 3; pp. 375 - 382
• Main Authors: Vlach, Haley A., Johnson, Scott P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.06.2013; Elsevier
• Subjects: Age Differences; Biological and medical sciences; Child Development; Cross-situational learning; Developmental psychology; Eye Movements; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Infant; Infants; Language Acquisition; Language Development; Learning; Learning - physiology; Male; Mathematics; Memory; Memory - physiology; Memory development; Newborn. Infant; Psycholinguistics; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Statistical learning; Statistics; Vocabulary; Word mapping; Language development; Memory development; Cross-situational learning; Word mapping; Statistical learning; Human; Word; Memory; Infant; Cognition; Experimental study; Acquisition process; Language; Cognitive development
• ISSN: 0010-0277; 1873-7838
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.02.015

Infants are able to map linguistic labels to referents in the world by tracking co-occurrence probabilities across learning events, a behavior often termed cross-situational statistical learning. This study builds upon existing research by examining infants’ developing ability to aggregate and retrieve word-referent pairings over time. 16- and 20-month-old infants (N=32) were presented with a cross-situational statistical learning task in which half of the object-label pairings were presented in immediate succession (massed) and half were distributed across time (interleaved). Results revealed striking developmental differences in word mapping performance; infants in both age groups were able to learn pairings presented in immediate succession, but only 20-month-old infants were able to correctly infer pairings distributed over time. This work reveals significant constraints on infants’ ability to aggregate and retrieve object-label pairings across time and challenges theories of cross-situational statistical learning that rest on retrieval processes as successful and automatic.