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ERIC Number: ED661907
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0010-0277
EISSN: N/A
Comparison within Pairs Promotes Analogical Abstraction in Three-Month-Olds
Erin M. Anderson; Yin-Juei Chang; Susan Hespos; Dedre Gentner
Grantee Submission, Cognition v176 p74-86 2018
This research tests whether analogical learning is present before language comprehension. Three-month-old infants were habituated to a series of analogous pairs, instantiating either the "same" relation (e.g., AA, BB, etc.) or the "different" relation (e.g., AB, CD, etc.), and then tested with further exemplars of the relations. If they can distinguish the familiar relation from the novel relation, even with new objects, this is evidence for analogical abstraction across the study pairs. In Experiment 1, we did not find evidence of analogical abstraction when 3-month-olds were habituated to six pairs instantiating the relation. However, in Experiment 2, infants showed evidence of analogical abstraction after habituation to "two" alternating pairs (e.g., AA, BB, AA, BB…). Further, as with older groups, rendering individual objects salient disrupted learning the relation. These results demonstrate that 3-month-old infants are capable of comparison and abstraction of the "same"/"different" relation. Our findings also place limits on the conditions under which these processes are likely to occur. We discuss implications for theories of relational learning.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS); National Science Foundation (NSF), Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE); Office of Naval Research (ONR) (DOD); Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: N/A
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1423917; 1041707; 1729720; N0001492J1098; R305B140042