Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States.
Cognition. 2010 May;115(2):362-6. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2010.01.006. Epub 2010 Feb 9.
Previous work demonstrated that 9-month-olds who were familiarized with 3-syllable strings consistent with both a broader (AAB or ABA) and narrower (AAdi or AdiA) generalization made only the latter. Because the narrower generalization is a subset of the broader one, any example that is consistent with the broader generalization but not the narrower one should allow a rational learner to select the broader generalization. The current experiment asked whether infants show evidence of being such learners. Infants who heard the stimuli that previously led to the narrower generalization plus three counterexamples mixed into the last five stimuli made the broader generalization at test. A control condition ruled out the possibility that infants based their generalization on the last five familiarization stimuli. The new findings suggest that infants effectively consider multiple competing models for their input and use rational decision criteria for selecting among these models.
先前的研究表明，9 个月大的婴儿在熟悉了与更广泛（AAB 或 ABA）和更窄（AAdi 或 AdiA）泛化一致的 3 音节字符串后，只会做出后者的泛化。因为更窄的泛化是更广泛的泛化的子集，所以任何与更广泛的泛化一致但与更窄的泛化不一致的例子都应该允许理性学习者选择更广泛的泛化。目前的实验询问婴儿是否表现出成为这样的学习者的证据。在听到之前导致更窄泛化的刺激以及最后五个刺激中混合的三个反例后，婴儿在测试中做出了更广泛的泛化。一个对照条件排除了婴儿基于最后五个熟悉刺激进行泛化的可能性。新的发现表明，婴儿有效地考虑了输入的多个竞争模型，并使用理性决策标准来在这些模型之间进行选择。
