Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32158415›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in psychology2020

Infants' Learning of Rule-Based Visual Sequences Predicts Language Outcome at 2 Years.

Roberta Bettoni, Valentina Riva, Chiara Cantiani, Massimo Molteni, Viola Macchi Cassia, Hermann Bulf

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Early manifestations of unexpected bilingualism in minimally verbal autism.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026
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  7. Visual Implicit Learning Abilities in Infants at Familial Risk for Language and Learning Impairments.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Roberta BettoniDepartment of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Valentina RivaChild Psychopathology Unit, Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy.
Chiara CantianiChild Psychopathology Unit, Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy.
Massimo MolteniChild Psychopathology Unit, Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy.
Viola Macchi CassiaDepartment of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Hermann BulfDepartment of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The ability to learn and generalize abstract rules from sensory input - i.e., Rule Learning (RL) - is seen as pivotal to language development, and specifically to the acquisition of the grammatical structure of language. Although many studies have shown that RL in infancy is operating across different perceptual domains, including vision, no studies have directly investigated the link between infants' visual RL and later language acquisition. Here, we conducted a longitudinal study to investigate whether 7-month-olds' ability to detect visual structural regularities predicts linguistic outcome at 2 years of age. At 7 months, infants were tested for their ability to extract and generalize ABB and ABA structures from sequences of visual shapes, and at 24 months their lexical and grammatical skills were assessed using the MacArthur-Bates CDI. Regression analyses showed that infants' visual RL abilities selectively predicted early grammatical abilities, but not lexical abilities. These results may provide the first evidence that RL mechanisms are involved in language acquisition, and suggest that RL abilities may act as an early neurocognitive marker for language impairments.

Indexed as

implicit learninginfantslanguage developmentlexiconrule learningsyntax

Identifiers

PMID32158415
PMCPMC7052175

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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.