Perceptual and Linguistic Factors in Infants’ Relational Learning

Anderson, Erin M

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-9b26-6a36

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Perceptual and Linguistic Factors in Infants’ Relational Learning

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Humans are prodigious learners. One of our most powerful learning tools is the ability to detect and transfer relational similarities between items and events, despite their perceptual differences. Previous research has found that the roots of this ability extend into infancy. As early as three months of age, infants can recognize the abstract relations same and different, (Anderson, et al., 2018). Additionally, infants already show two patterns that characterize relational learning in older children and adults: 1) learning improves when they have greater opportunities to compare multiple exemplars of a relation, and 2) learning is hindered when surface differences are highlighted instead. These results indicate consistencies in this learning process across the lifespan. However, there are numerous differences between infants, children and adults. Older learners benefit from mature perceptual and attentional processes, improved working memory, and from experience with abstract and relational language. This dissertation focuses on how these factors interact with relational learning in the first year of life. Chapter 1 asks how the maturation of perceptual processes and short term memory in the first year affects recognition and generalization. Chapter 2 examines the impact of labeling the relations at 12 months, compared to labeling the objects involved. Finally Chapter 3 asks if infants can transition from context-specific learning to more generalizable representations of the relation in a short period of time. Ultimately, these studies highlight that what improves relational alignment depends on the age of the learner, by pointing to a protracted period over which the relational learning process becomes linked to factors that will later benefit it.

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