Dawson Colin, Gerken LouAnn
University of Arizona, Department of Psychology, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
Cognition. 2009 Jun;111(3):378-82. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.02.010. Epub 2009 Mar 31.
Learning must be constrained for it to lead to productive generalizations. Although biology is undoubtedly an important source of constraints, prior experience may be another, leading learners to represent input in ways that are more conducive to some generalizations than others, and/or to up- and down-weight features when entertaining generalizations. In two experiments, 4-month-old and 7-month-old infants were familiarized with sequences of musical chords or tones adhering either to an AAB pattern or an ABA pattern. In both cases, the 4-month-olds learned the generalization, but the 7-month-olds did not. The success of the 4-month-olds appears to contradict an account that this type of pattern learning is the provenance of a language-specific rule-learning module. It is not yet clear what drives the age-related change, but plausible candidates include differential experience with language and music, as well as interactions between general cognitive development and stimulus complexity.
学习必须受到限制才能产生有效的归纳。虽然生物学无疑是限制的一个重要来源，但先前的经验可能是另一个来源，它引导学习者以更有利于某些归纳而非其他归纳的方式来表征输入信息，并且/或者在进行归纳时对特征进行加权或减权。在两项实验中，4个月大和7个月大的婴儿熟悉了遵循AAB模式或ABA模式的和弦或音调序列。在这两种情况下，4个月大的婴儿学会了归纳，但7个月大的婴儿没有。4个月大婴儿的成功似乎与一种观点相矛盾，即这种模式学习是特定于语言的规则学习模块的产物。目前尚不清楚是什么导致了这种与年龄相关的变化，但合理的候选因素包括在语言和音乐方面的不同经验，以及一般认知发展与刺激复杂性之间的相互作用。
