Symbolic labeling in 5-month-old human infants.

ABSTRACT: Humans' ability to create and manipulate symbolic structures far exceeds that of other animals. We hypothesized that this ability rests on an early capacity to use arbitrary signs to represent any mental representation, even as abstract as an algebraic rule. In three experiments, we collected high-density EEG recordings while 150 5-month-old infants were presented with speech triplets characterized by their abstract syllabic structure-the location of syllable repetition-which predicted a following arbitrary label (e.g., ABA words were followed by a fish picture, AAB words by a lion). After a brief learning phase, EEG responses to novel words revealed that infants built expectations about the upcoming label based on the triplet structure and were surprised when it happened to be incongruent

SUBMITTER: Kabdebon C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6431210 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature