Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42745478›Full record

ArticleDevelopmental science2026

ManyBabies 3: A Multi-Lab Study of Infant Algebraic Rule Learning.

Ingmar Visser, Andreea Geambasu, George Kachergis, Cátia M Oliveira, Joscelin Rocha-Hidalgo, Martin Zettersten, Teruni Ahamat, Nicolás Alessandroni, Nadja Althaus, Sudha Arunachalam and 74 more

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Article in Developmental science, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing 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

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

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

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. 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

84 authors.

Ingmar VisserDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Andreea GeambasuLeiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.
George KachergisDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4153-4167
Cátia M OliveiraSchool of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Joscelin Rocha-HidalgoDepartment of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.
Martin ZetterstenDepartment of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0444-7059
Teruni AhamatDepartment of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3844-2537
Nicolás AlessandroniDepartment of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6595-0969
Nadja AlthausSchool of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4888-1508
Sudha ArunachalamDepartment of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, New York University, New York, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4394-3626
Suzanne AussemsDepartment of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
Emma L AxelssonSchool of Psychological Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia.
Zeynep AydinDepartment of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8419-6109
Heidi A BaumgartnerDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Christina BergmannOsnabrück University of Applied Sciences, Osnabrück, Germany.
Roberta BettoniDepartment of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7866-565X
Alexis K BlackSchool of Audiology and Speech Sciences, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6764-4319
Hermann BulfDepartment of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Krista Byers-HeinleinDepartment of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7040-2510
Chiara CappariniCenter for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
Lily CarrollDepartment of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, New York University, New York, USA.
Alexandra CarstensenSchool of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
Rebekka CebullaDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Xiaoyun ChenDepartment of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9527-4965
Kateřina ChládkováInstitute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia.
Benedetta ColavolpeDepartment of Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
Rodica R ConstantineDepartment of Psychology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Elísabet Eir CortesDepartment of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Frances L DoyleLifespan Health & Wellbeing Research Centre, School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6621-5280
Anna ExnerFaculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Samuel H ForbesDepartment of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, UK.
Laura FranchinDepartment of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8777-8752
Alessandra GeraciDepartment of Educational Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Italy.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1375-9190
Judit GervainDepartment of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
Nayeli Gonzalez-GomezCentre for Psychological Research, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.
Silje HagelundCentre for Research on Equality in Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1293-7844
Erin E HannonDepartment of Psychology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Naomi HavronSchool of Psychological Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6429-1546
Sagi Jaffe-DaxSchool of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Scott P JohnsonDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Wiktoria JędryczkaInstitute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.
Natalia KartushinaDepartment of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4650-5832
Melissa Kline StruhlDepartment of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2217-9331
Ada KoleiniDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1609-254X
Abhinav KonaDepartment of BioSciences, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6579-4908
Shannon P KongCentre for Psychological Research, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.
Jessica E KosieSchool of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
Monika Kuc̆erováInstitute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia.
Katerina CookInstitute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia.
Jared Wayne LeslieDepartment of Psychology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Casey Lew-WilliamsDepartment of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8781-4458
Scarlet Wan Yee LiDepartment of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.
Romi LivneSchool of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Ellen MarklundDepartment of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Julien MayorDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Michal MisiakIDN Being Human, Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.
David MoreauSchool of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Jutta L MuellerDepartment of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Amber MuhinyiDepartment of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK.
Alyssa A QuinnSchool of Psychological Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia.
Maartje E J RaijmakersDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Audun RosslundDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Iris-Corinna SchwarzDepartment of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8036-516X
Jeanne L ShinskeyDepartment of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK.
Mohinish ShuklaDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Sylvain SiroisDépartement de Psychologie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2004-4583
Piotr SorokowskiInstitute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.
Basma SowanSchool of Psychological Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Tibor TauzinDepartment of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Angeline Sin Mei TsuiDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Martina TurconiDepartment of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
Rebeca C UrizarDepartment of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Lisa WagnerJacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1925-2676
Stephanie WermelingerDepartment of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6500-9108
Gert WestermannDepartment of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2803-1872
Ivonne WeyersDepartment of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Luiza S B YuanInstitute for Logic, Language, and Computation, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Martina S ZaharievaDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Tania S ZamunerDepartment of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.
Barbara ZapiórSchool of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
Simone ZassoDepartment of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8508-0965
J Grace ZhouDepartment of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Melanie SoderstromDepartment of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3212-5775
Clara C LeveltLeiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2916-0326

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The ability to learn and apply rules lies at the heart of cognition. In a seminal study, Marcus et al. (1999) reported that 7-month-old infants learned abstract rules over syllable sequences and were able to generalize those rules to novel syllable sequences. Dozens of studies have since replicated that finding and extended it using different rules, modalities, stimuli, participants (human adults and non-human animals) and experimental procedures. Yet questions remain about the generalizability of the core findings in Marcus et al., and sources of variation across these findings. In the current study, we address this issue by testing 839 infants (650 after exclusions) of a wide age range (5;0-12;0 months) in a multi-laboratory (30 laboratories, [31 samples]) conceptual replication of the Marcus et al. study. This study and the analysis plan were submitted as a registered report. A mixed-model analysis of the looking times at consistent versus inconsistent test trials indicated no significant effect. The current study therefore finds no evidence for rule-learning; to the contrary, a Bayesian analysis of the data indicated strong evidence for a null effect. This was similarly the case for the moderating factors that were part of the design: mono- versus multilingualism, age, and experimental paradigm; none of these factors showed significant effects. Robustness analyses indicated that the results were not different in the case of different choices in the (pre-)processing of the data. A follow-up analysis for single labs indicated that there was no evidence of rule-learning in 30 of the 31 contributed samples. The current finding raises fundamental issues about rule-learning that are presented in the Discussion section.

Indexed as

Child DevelopmentLearningBayes TheoremCognitionFemaleHumansInfantMaleinfantsmulti‐lab replicationrule learning

Identifiers

PMID42745478
PMCPMC13578860

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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.