Premium
Location, Location, Location: Development of Spatiotemporal Sequence Learning in Infancy
Author(s) -
Kirkham Natasha Z.,
Slemmer Jonathan A.,
Richardson Daniel C.,
Johnson Scott P.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01083.x
Subject(s) - novelty , psychology , sequence (biology) , sequence learning , saccade , spatial ability , cognitive psychology , communication , preference , test (biology) , eye movement , developmental psychology , artificial intelligence , cognition , computer science , statistics , social psychology , neuroscience , mathematics , paleontology , genetics , biology
We investigated infants’ sensitivity to spatiotemporal structure. In Experiment 1, circles appeared in a statistically defined spatial pattern. At test 11‐month‐olds, but not 8‐month‐olds, looked longer at a novel spatial sequence. Experiment 2 presented different color/shape stimuli, but only the location sequence was violated during test; 8‐month‐olds preferred the novel spatial structure, but 5‐month‐olds did not. In Experiment 3, the locations but not color/shape pairings were constant at test; 5‐month‐olds showed a novelty preference. Experiment 4 examined “online learning”: We recorded eye movements of 8‐month‐olds watching a spatiotemporal sequence. Saccade latencies to predictable locations decreased. We argue that temporal order statistics involving informative spatial relations become available to infants during the first year after birth, assisted by multiple cues.