Space modulates cross-domain transfer of abstract rules in infants

Spatial associations of number and pitch in human newborns

Humans use space to think, reason about, externally represent, and even talk about many dimensions (e.g., time, pitch height). One dimension that appears to exploit spatial resources is the mental representation of the numerosity of a set in the form of a mental number line. Although the horizontal number-space mapping is present from birth (small-left vs. large-right), it is unknown whether it extends to other spatial axes from birth or whether it is later acquired through development/experience. Moreover, newborns map changes in pitch height onto a vertical axis (low pitch-bottom vs. high pitch-top), but it is an open question whether it extends to other spatial axes. We presented newborns (N = 64 total, n = 16 per experiment, 0-4 days) with an auditory increase/decrease in magnitude along with a visual figure on a vertically oriented screen (bottom vs. top, change in number: Experiments 1 and 2; change in pitch: Experiment 3) or on a horizontally oriented screen (left vs. right, change in pitch: Experiment 4). Newborns associated changes in magnitude with a vertical axis only when experiencing an increase in magnitude (increase/up); however, the possibility that visuospatial biases could account for this asymmetric pattern are discussed. Newborns did not map changes in pitch horizontally (Experiment 4), in line with previous work showing that the horizontal mapping of number at birth does not generalize to other dimensions. These findings suggest that the flexible use of different spatial axes to map magnitude is not functional at birth and that the horizontal mapping of number might be privileged.

The developmental cognitive mechanism of learning algebraic rules from the dual-process theory perspective

Rule learning is an important ability that enables human beings to adapt to nature and develop civilizations. There have been many discussions on the mechanism and characteristics of algebraic rule learning, but there are still controversies due to the lack of theoretical guidance. Based on the dual-process theory, this study discussed the following arguments for algebraic rule learning across human and animal studies: whether algebraic rule learning is simply Type 1 processing, whether algebraic rule learning is a domain-general ability, whether algebraic rule learning is shared by humans and animals, and whether an algebraic rule is learned consciously. Moreover, we propose that algebraic rule learning is possibly a cognitive process that combines both Type 1 and Type 2 processing. Further exploration is required to establish the essence and neural basis of algebraic rule learning.

Rules generalization in children with dyslexia

BACKGROUND

Rule learning (RL) is the ability to extract and generalize higher-order repetition-based structures. Children with Developmental Dyslexia (DD) often report difficulties in learning complex regularities in sequential stimuli, which might be due to the complexity of the rule to be learned. Learning high-order repetition-based rules represents a building block for the development of language skills.

AIMS

This study investigates the ability to extract and generalize simple, repetition-based visual rules (e.g., ABA) in 8-11-year-old children without (TD) and with a diagnosis of Development Dyslexia (DD) and its relationship with language and reading skills.

METHOD

Using a forced-choice paradigm, children were first exposed to a visual sequence containing a repetition-based rule (e.g., ABA) and were then asked to recognize familiar and novel rules generated by new visual elements. Standardized language and reading tests were also administered to both groups.

RESULTS

The accuracy in recognizing rules was above chance for both groups, even though DD children were less accurate than TD children, suggesting a less efficient RL mechanism in the DD group. Moreover, visual RL was positively correlated with both language and reading skills.

CONCLUSION

These results further confirm the crucial role of RL in the acquisition of linguistic skills and mastering reading abilities.

Learning and generalization of repetition-based rules in autism

Rule Learning (RL) allows us to extract and generalize high-order rules from a sequence of elements. Despite the critical role of RL in the acquisition of linguistic and social abilities, no study has investigated RL processes in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Here, we investigated RL in high-functioning autistic adolescents with ASD, examining whether their ability to extract and generalize rules from a sequence of visual elements is affected by the social vs. non-social nature of the stimulus and by visual working memory (WM). Using a forced-choice paradigm, ASD adolescents and typically developing (TD) peers were tested for their ability to detect and generalize high-order, repetition-based rules from visual sequences of simple non-social stimuli (shapes), complex non-social stimuli (inverted faces), and social stimuli (upright face). Both ASD and TD adolescents were able to generalize the rule they had learned to new stimuli, and their ability was modulated by the social nature of the stimuli and the complexity of the rule. Moreover, an association between RL and WM was found in the ASD, but not TD group, suggesting that ASD might have used additional or alternative strategies that relied on visual WM resources.

Abstract representations of small sets in newborns

From the very first days of life, newborns are not tied to represent narrow, modality- and object-specific aspects of their environment. Rather, they sometimes react to abstract properties shared by stimuli of very different nature, such as approximate numerosity or magnitude. As of now, however, there is no evidence that newborns possess abstract representations that apply to small sets: in particular, while newborns can match large approximate numerosities across senses, this ability does not extend to small numerosities. In two experiments, we presented newborn infants (N = 64, age 17 to 98 h) with patterned sets AB or ABB simultaneously in the auditory and visual modalities. Auditory patterns were presented as periodic sequences of sounds (AB: triangle-drum-triangle-drum-triangle-drum …; ABB: triangle-drum-drum-triangle-drum-drum-triangle-drum-drum …), and visual patterns as arrays of 2 or 3 shapes (AB: circle-diamond; ABB: circle-diamond-diamond). In both experiments, we found that participants reacted and looked longer when the patterns matched across the auditory and visual modalities – provided that the first stimulus they received was congruent. These findings uncover the existence of yet another type of abstract representations at birth, applying to small sets. As such, they bolster the hypothesis that newborns are endowed with the capacity to represent their environment in broad strokes, in terms of its most abstract properties. This capacity for abstraction could later serve as a scaffold for infants to learn about the particular entities surrounding them.

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Newborns were presented with auditory and visual patterns (AB vs. ABB).

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Participants reacted when the patterns presented were congruent across modalities.

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Newborns possess abstract representations applying to small sets.

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These representations may encode numerosity and/or repetitions.

The role of cognitive control in the SNARC effect: A review

The spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect, in which people respond to small numbers faster with the left hand and to large numbers faster with the right hand, is a popular topic in cognitive psychology. Some well-known theoretical accounts explaining this effect include the mental number line model, polarity correspondence principle, dual-route model, and working memory account. However, these fail to explain the finding that the size of the SNARC effect is modulated by cognitive control. Here, we propose a new account-a cognitive control-based view of the SNARC effect. This view argues that the SNARC effect is fundamentally determined by cognitive control in resolving conflicts during stimulus-response mapping. Several subcomponents of cognitive control, such as working memory, mental or task set shifting, inhibition control, and conflict adaptation, can easily modulate the SNARC effect. The cognitive control-based view can account for the flexible SNARC effect observed in diverse task situations while providing new insight into its mechanism.

Visual Implicit Learning Abilities in Infants at Familial Risk for Language and Learning Impairments

The ability of infants to track transitional probabilities (Statistical Learning—SL) and to extract and generalize high-order rules (Rule Learning—RL) from sequences of items have been proposed as being pivotal for the acquisition of language and reading skills. Although there is ample evidence of specific associations between SL and RL abilities and, respectively, vocabulary and grammar skills, research exploring SL and RL as early markers of language and learning (dis)abilities is still scarce. Here we investigated the efficiency of visual SL and RL skills in typically developing (TD) seven-month-old infants and in seven-month-old infants at high risk (HR) for language learning impairment. Infants were tested in two visual-habituation tasks aimed to measure their ability to extract transitional probabilities (SL task) or high-order, repetition-based rules (RL task) from sequences of visual shapes. Post-habituation looking time preferences revealed that both TD and HR infants succeeded in learning the statistical structure (SL task), while only TD infants, but not HR infants, were able to learn and generalize the high-order rule (RL task). These findings suggest that SL and RL may contribute differently to the emergence of language learning impairment and support the hypothesis that a mechanism linked to the extraction of grammar structures may contribute to the disorder.

Signatures of functional visuospatial asymmetries in early infancy

Adults present a large number of asymmetries in visuospatial behavior that are known to be supported by functional brain lateralization. Although there is evidence of lateralization for motor behavior and language processing in infancy, no study has explored visuospatial attention biases in the early stages of development. In this study, we tested for the presence of a leftward visuospatial bias (i.e., pseudoneglect) in 4- and 5-month-old infants using an adapted version of the line bisection task. Infants were trained to identify the center of a horizontal line (Experiment 1) while their eye gazes were monitored using a remote eye-tracking procedure to measure their potential gazing error. Infants exhibited a robust pseudoneglect, gazing leftward with respect to the veridical midpoint of the horizontal line. To investigate whether infants' pseudoneglect generalizes to any given object or is dependent on the horizontal dimension, in Experiment 2 we assessed infants' gaze deployment in vertically oriented lines. No leftward bias was found, suggesting that early visuospatial attention biases in infancy are constrained by the orientation of the visual plane in which the information is organized. The interplay between biological and cultural factors that might contribute to the early establishment of the observed leftward bias in the allocation of visuospatial attention is discussed.

Can a Single Representational Object Account for Different Number-Space Mappings?

Numbers are mapped onto space from birth on, as evidenced by a variety of interactions between the processing of numerical and spatial information. In particular, larger numbers are associated to larger spatial extents (number/spatial extent mapping) and to rightward spatial locations (number/location mapping), and smaller numbers are associated to smaller spatial extents and leftward spatial locations. These two main types of number/space mappings (number/spatial extent and number/location mappings) are usually assumed to reflect the fact that numbers are represented on an internal continuum: the mental number line. However, to date there is very little evidence that these two mappings actually reflect a single representational object. Across two experiments in adults, we investigated the interaction between number/location and number/spatial extent congruency effects, both when numbers were presented in a non-symbolic and in a symbolic format. We observed a significant interaction between the two mappings, but only in the context of an implicit numerical task. The results were unaffected by the format of presentation of numbers. We conclude that the number/location and the number/spatial extent mappings can stem from the activation of a single representational object, but only in specific experimental contexts.