ArticlePloS one2018
Very young infants learn abstract rules in the visual modality.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- ManyBabies 3: A Multi-Lab Study of Infant Algebraic Rule Learning.Developmental science · 2026Article
- Modality-general sensitivity of pupil responses to regularity violations.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural entrainment to visual rules in infant and adult brain.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Abstract representations of small sets in newborns.Cognition · 2022Article
- From social contingency to verbal reference: A constructivist hypothesis.Psychological review · 2022Review
- Seven-month-old infants detect symmetrical structures in multi-featured abstract visual patterns.PloS one · 2022Article
- Experience with research paradigms relates to infants' direction of preference.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies · 2021Article
- Specificity of representations in infants' visual statistical learning.Journal of experimental child psychology · 2020Article
- Comparing statistical learning across perceptual modalities in infancy: An investigation of underlying learning mechanism(s).Developmental science · 2019Article
- Non-Linguistic Grammar Learning by 12-Month-Old Infants: Evidence for Constraints on Learning.Journal of cognition and development : official journal of the Cognitive Development Society · 2019Article
- No Evidence That Abstract Structure Learning Disrupts Novel-Event Learning in 8- to 11-Month-Olds.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- Statistical learning as a window into developmental disabilities.Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders · 2018Review
- Spontaneous Learning of Visual Structures in Domestic Chicks.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Abstracting the structure or 'rules' underlying observed patterns is central to mature cognition, yet research with infants suggests this far-reaching capacity is initially restricted to certain stimuli. Infants successfully abstract rules from auditory sequences (e.g., language), but fail when the same rules are presented as visual sequences (e.g., shapes). We propose that this apparent gap between rule learning in the auditory and visual modalities reflects the distinct requirements of the perceptual systems that interface with cognition: The auditory system efficiently extracts patterns from sequences structured in time, but the visual system best extracts patterns from sequences structured in space. Here, we provide the first evidence for this proposal with adults in an abstract rule learning task. We then reveal strong developmental continuity: infants as young as 3 months of age also successfully learn abstract rules in the visual modality when sequences are structured in space. This provides the earliest evidence to date of abstract rule learning in any modality.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.