Development of Sequence Learning in Infants

婴儿顺序学习的发展

• 批准号: 0751888
• 负责人: David Lewkowicz
• 金额: $ 38.7万
• 依托单位: Florida Atlantic University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-06-01 至 2012-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0751888&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Development; Sequence; Learning; Infants

How do human infants perceive events that occur in time? The current project examines this question by studying sequence learning, a critical skill that underlies event perception. The theoretical assumption guiding this project is that as development progresses, infants become capable of learning increasingly more complex sequential relations. The goal of the project is to determine at what age infants become capable of learning particular forms of sequential complexity. To answer this question, the investigator plans to use a habituation/test procedure together with measures of visual attention. Infants are first habituated to sequences consisting either of moving/sounding objects, moving/silent objects, or only sounds arranged in a particular order. Then, they are given test trials during which the order of sequence components is changed and their ability to detect that change is measured. The investigator hopes to determine when specific sequence learning abilities emerge and improve during infancy through these experiments that vary (1) sequence complexity, (2) the particular ordinal relations of sequence components, and (3) the specific nature of sequence components (i.e., whether they are audiovisual, visual, or auditory). The predictions are, as infants grow, that they become capable of learning more complex sequential relations, that they come to depend less on their redundant specification in multiple sensory modalities, and that they are able to generalize their learning across sensory modalities.Sequence learning is a fundamental skill that is involved in many higher-level skills such as speech, language, reading, event representation, social interaction, and the acquisition of complex motor skills. As a result, this project will provide critical new insights into the underlying developmental foundation for the emergence of the many higher-level behavioral skills that children must master in order to function adaptively. In addition, by carefully characterizing and charting the developmental emergence of sequence learning skills in infancy, the current project offers the possibility of discovering whether the failure to develop age-appropriate behavioral skills, as is the case in many types of developmental learning and communication disorders, may be related to a failure to develop basic sequence learning skills.

人类婴儿如何感知及时发生的事件？目前的项目通过研究序列学习来研究这个问题，序列学习是事件感知的一种关键技能。指导这个项目的理论假设是，随着发育的进展，婴儿能够学习越来越复杂的顺序关系。该项目的目标是确定婴儿在什么年龄能够学习特定形式的顺序复杂性。为了回答这个问题，研究人员计划使用习惯化/测试程序以及视觉注意力的测量。婴儿首先习惯于由移动/听起来的物体、移动/沉默的物体或只有按特定顺序排列的声音组成的序列。然后，他们被给予测试试验，在此期间，序列成分的顺序被改变，并测量他们检测这种变化的能力。研究者希望通过这些实验来确定特定的序列学习能力在婴儿期何时出现和提高，这些实验改变了(1)序列复杂性，(2)序列成分的特定顺序关系，以及(3)序列成分的特定性质(即，它们是视听的，还是听觉的)。这些预测是，随着婴儿的成长，他们变得能够学习更复杂的顺序关系，他们变得更少依赖于他们在多个感觉通道中的冗余指定，并且他们能够将他们的学习概括到不同的感觉通道。顺序学习是一项基本技能，涉及许多更高层次的技能，如语音、语言、阅读、事件表征、社交和复杂运动技能的获得。因此，这个项目将为儿童为适应功能而必须掌握的许多高级行为技能的出现提供关键的新见解，以了解潜在的发展基础。此外，通过仔细描述和绘制婴儿期顺序学习技能的发展出现的特征和图表，本项目提供了发现未能发展与年龄相适应的行为技能的可能性，就像许多类型的发展性学习和沟通障碍的情况一样，可能与未能发展基本的顺序学习技能有关。