Thiessen Erik D, Saffran Jenny R
Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2009 Jul;1169:225-33. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04547.x.
Infants are often presented with input in which there are multiple related regularities, as is the case in musical input with both melodic and lyrical structure. Adult learners often learn more easily from complex input containing multiple correlated regularities than from simplified input. Do infants also capitalize on complexity, or instead do they benefit from simplified input? In this series of experiments, infants were presented with music in which melodic and lyrical structure predicted each other, or in which only one type of regularity was presented in isolation (melodies alone, or lyrics presented with no melody). Infants learned lyrics more easily when they were paired with a melody than when they were presented alone; similarly, they learned melodies more easily when they were paired with lyrics than when they were presented alone. There are several potential mechanisms that could explain how infants' learning is facilitated by complex input, suggesting important implications for learning in infants' natural environments.
婴儿经常会接触到包含多种相关规律的输入信息，音乐输入中的旋律和歌词结构就是如此。成年学习者通常从包含多种相关规律的复杂输入中学习比从简化输入中更容易。婴儿也会利用复杂性吗？还是说他们从简化输入中受益？在这一系列实验中，给婴儿呈现的音乐中，旋律和歌词结构相互预测，或者只单独呈现一种规律（仅旋律，或无旋律的歌词）。与单独呈现时相比，歌词与旋律配对时婴儿学习歌词更容易；同样，与单独呈现时相比，旋律与歌词配对时婴儿学习旋律更容易。有几种潜在机制可以解释复杂输入如何促进婴儿的学习，这对婴儿自然环境中的学习具有重要意义。
