Newborn infants perceive abstract numbers.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Izard V
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2700913 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Young infants' learning of words for abstract concepts like 'all gone' and 'eat,' in contrast to their learning of more concrete words like 'apple' and 'shoe,' may follow a relatively protracted developmental course. We examined whether infants know such abstract words. Parents named one of two events shown in side-by-side videos while their 6-16-month-old infants (n=98) watched. On average, infants successfully looked at the named video by 10 months, but not earlier, and infants' looking at the named referent increased robustly at around 14 months. Six-month-olds already understand concrete words in this task (Bergelson & Swingley, 2012). A video-corpus analysis of unscripted mother-infant interaction showed that mothers used the tested abstract words less often in the presence of their referent events than they used concrete words in the presence of their referent objects. We suggest that referential uncertainty in abstract words' teaching conditions may explain the later acquisition of abstract than concrete words, and we discuss the possible role of changes in social-cognitive abilities over the 6-14 month period.
| S-EPMC3633664 | biostudies-literature
Project description:One pervasive facet of human interactions is the tendency to favor ingroups over outgroups. Remarkably, this tendency has been observed even when individuals are assigned to minimal groups based on arbitrary markers. Why is mere categorization into a minimal group sufficient to elicit some degree of ingroup favoritism? We consider several accounts that have been proposed in answer to this question and then test one particular account, which holds that ingroup favoritism reflects in part an abstract and early-emerging sociomoral expectation of ingroup support. In violation-of-expectation experiments with 17-mo-old infants, unfamiliar women were first identified (using novel labels) as belonging to the same group, to different groups, or to unspecified groups. Next, one woman needed instrumental assistance to achieve her goal, and another woman either provided the necessary assistance (help event) or chose not to do so (ignore event). When the two women belonged to the same group, infants looked significantly longer if shown the ignore as opposed to the help event; when the two women belonged to different groups or to unspecified groups, however, infants looked equally at the two events. Together, these results indicate that infants view helping as expected among individuals from the same group, but as optional otherwise. As such, the results demonstrate that from an early age, an abstract expectation of ingroup support contributes to ingroup favoritism in human interactions.
| S-EPMC5547641 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Newborn infants must rapidly adjust their physiology and behavior to the specific demands of the novel postnatal environment. This adaptation depends, at least in part, on the infant's ability to learn from experiences. We report here that infants exhibit learning even while asleep. Bioelectrical activity from face and scalp electrodes was recorded from neonates during an eye movement conditioning procedure in which a tone was followed by a puff of air to the eye. Sleeping newborns rapidly learned the predictive relationship between the tone and the puff. Additionally, in the latter part of training, these infants exhibited a frontally maximum positive EEG slow wave possibly reflecting memory updating. As newborns spend most of their time sleeping, the ability to learn about external stimuli in the postnatal environment during nonawake states may be crucial for rapid adaptation and infant survival. Furthermore, because eyelid conditioning reflects functional cerebellar circuitry, this method potentially offers a unique approach for early identification of infants at risk for a range of developmental disorders including autism and dyslexia.
| S-EPMC2890482 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Abstracting the structure or 'rules' underlying observed patterns is central to mature cognition, yet research with infants suggests this far-reaching capacity is initially restricted to certain stimuli. Infants successfully abstract rules from auditory sequences (e.g., language), but fail when the same rules are presented as visual sequences (e.g., shapes). We propose that this apparent gap between rule learning in the auditory and visual modalities reflects the distinct requirements of the perceptual systems that interface with cognition: The auditory system efficiently extracts patterns from sequences structured in time, but the visual system best extracts patterns from sequences structured in space. Here, we provide the first evidence for this proposal with adults in an abstract rule learning task. We then reveal strong developmental continuity: infants as young as 3 months of age also successfully learn abstract rules in the visual modality when sequences are structured in space. This provides the earliest evidence to date of abstract rule learning in any modality.
| S-EPMC5749756 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.
2014-09-25 | GSE53473 | GEO
Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below. The series of 113 samples (GSE53471) was used in all data analysis steps and the series of 15 (GSE53472) rehybridized samples was only utilized for batch correction. Refer to individual Series for details.
2014-09-25 | E-GEOD-53473 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The mechanisms underlying the discovery of abstract rules like those found in natural language may be evolutionarily tuned to speech, according to previous research. When infants hear speech sounds, they can learn rules that govern their combination, but when they hear non-speech sounds such as sine-wave tones, they fail to do so. Here we show that infants' rule learning is not tied to speech per se, but is instead enhanced more broadly by communicative signals. In two experiments, infants succeeded in learning and generalizing rules from tones that were introduced as if they could be used to communicate. In two control experiments, infants failed to learn the very same rules when familiarized to tones outside of a communicative exchange. These results reveal that infants' attention to social agents and communication catalyzes a fundamental achievement of human learning.
| S-EPMC4858667 | biostudies-literature
Project description:To shed light on how humans can learn to understand music, we need to discover what the perceptual capabilities with which infants are born. Beat induction, the detection of a regular pulse in an auditory signal, is considered a fundamental human trait that, arguably, played a decisive role in the origin of music. Theorists are divided on the issue whether this ability is innate or learned. We show that newborn infants develop expectation for the onset of rhythmic cycles (the downbeat), even when it is not marked by stress or other distinguishing spectral features. Omitting the downbeat elicits brain activity associated with violating sensory expectations. Thus, our results strongly support the view that beat perception is innate.
| S-EPMC2631079 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC8129634 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This article presents a dataset on intra-hospital transport of newborn infants. We collected prospectively data from patients hospitalized between 1.6.2015 and 31.5.2017 at the tertiary care neonatal unit of the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland. An intra-hospital transport was defined as a transport for a diagnostic or a therapeutic intervention outside the neonatal unit, but within the hospital. Healthcare professionals present during the transport collected data in a case report form. We obtained additional data from electronic medical charts and through the clinical information system Metavision®. We recorded information on patients' demographics and clinical characteristics, transports (indication, date, duration, destination, number and type of staff involved, medical devices and treatments), adverse events and interventions. Heart rate, peripheral oxygen saturation and fraction of inspired oxygen were recorded within 5 min before and after the transport, with an additional measure during transport for patients that had continuous monitoring of vital signs. This dataset will be of use to clinicians, researchers and policy makers, to inform clinical practice, for benchmarking, and for the development of future guidelines. These data have been further analyzed and interpreted in the article "Adverse events and associated factors during intra-hospital transport of newborn infants" (Delacrétaz et al, 2021).
| S-EPMC8572860 | biostudies-literature