Generalization of learning in three-and-a-half-month-old infants on the basis of amodal relations.

Full Abstract

Infants of 3.5 months (N = 124) were given the opportunity to learn to relate two objects and their natural, distinctive sounds during a training phase. The objects and sounds were united by temporal synchrony and amodal audiovisual information specifying object composition. Infants then participated in one of three types of transfer tests (requiring low, moderate, or high degrees of generalization) to measure the extent to which intermodal knowledge generalized to a new task and across events (familiar events; change in color/shape; change in substance, motion, and color/shape). Results indicated that infants tested with the familiar events and with events of a new color/shape showed learning and transfer of knowledge. In contrast, infants tested with events of a new substance, motion, and color/shape showed no generalization of learning. Thus, infants of 3.5 months appear to show a moderate degree of generalization of intermodal knowledge across events. Although this knowledge is not restricted to the events of original learning, it cannot yet be flexibly extended across a variety of contexts.

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Author information

Author/s: Bahrick, Lorraine E (LE);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida International University, Miami 33199, USA. bahrick@fiu.edu

Grants: R01 HD25669 (Agency:United States NICHD) ; R01 MH62226 (Agency:United States NIMH)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Child development (Child Dev), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2002 May-Jun; vol 73 (issue 3) : pp 667-81

Dates: Created 2002/05/31; Completed 2002/11/19; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 12038544, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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