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Wang JJ, Kibbe MM. "Catastrophic" set size limits on infants' capacity to represent objects: A systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis. Dev Sci 2024; 27:e13488. [PMID: 38421117 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13488] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2023] [Revised: 02/06/2024] [Accepted: 02/07/2024] [Indexed: 03/02/2024]
Abstract
Decades of research has revealed that humans can concurrently represent small quantities of three-dimensional objects as those objects move through space or into occlusion. For infants (but not older children or adults), this ability apparently comes with a significant limitation: when the number of occluded objects exceeds three, infants experience what has been characterized as a "catastrophic" set size limit, failing to represent even the approximate quantity of the hidden array. Infants' apparent catastrophic representational failures suggest a significant information processing limitation in the first years of life, and the evidence has been used as support for prominent theories of the development of object and numerical cognition. However, the evidence for catastrophic failure consists of individual small-n experiments that use null hypothesis significance testing to obtain null results (i.e., p > 0.05). Whether catastrophic representational failures are robust or reliable across studies, methods, and labs is not known. Here we report a systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis to examine the strength of the evidence in favor of catastrophic representational failures in infancy. Our analysis of 22 experiments across 12 reports, with a combined total of n = 367 infants aged 10-20 months, revealed strong support for the evidence for catastrophic set size limits. A complementary analysis found moderate support for infants' success when representing fewer than four objects. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of object and numerical cognitive development. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Previous work has suggested that infants are unable to concurrently represent four or more objects-a "catastrophic" set size limit. We reviewed this work and conducted a Bayesian meta-analysis to examine the robustness of this limit across individual small-n experiments. We found strong support for the evidence for catastrophic set size limits, and moderate support for infants' success when representing fewer than four objects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jinjing Jenny Wang
- Department of Psychology & Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
| | - Melissa M Kibbe
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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2
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Kaltsa M, Babacheva E, Fotiadou G, Goutsiou E, Kantziou K, Nicolaidis K, Soubasi V. Early cognitive assessment in premature infants: the discriminatory value of eye-tracking vs. Bayley Scales. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1384486. [PMID: 38957884 PMCID: PMC11217545 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1384486] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2024] [Accepted: 05/23/2024] [Indexed: 07/04/2024] Open
Abstract
Introduction The testing of visuocognitive development in preterm infants shows strong interactions between perinatal characteristics and cognition, learning and overall neurodevelopment evolution. The assessment of anticipatory gaze data of object-location bindings via eye-tracking can predict the neurodevelopment of preterm infants at the age of 3 years; little is known, however, about the early cognitive function and its assessment methods during the first year of life. Methods The current study presents data from a novel assessment tool, a Delayed Match Retrieval (DMR) paradigm via eye-tracking was used to measure visual working memory (VWM) and attention skills. The eye-tracking task that was designed to measure infants' ability to actively localize objects and to make online predictions of object-location bindings. 63 infants participated in the study, 39 preterm infants and 24 healthy full term infants - at a corrected age of 8-9 months for premature infants and similar chronological age for full term infants. Infants were also administered the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. Results The analysis of the Bayley scores showed no significant difference between the two groups while the eye-tracking data showed a significant group effect on all measurements. Moreover, preterm infants' VWM performance was significantly lower than full term's. Birth weight affected the gaze time on all Areas Of Interest (AOIs), overall VWM performance and the scores at the Cognitive Bayley subscale. Furthermore, preterm infants with fetal growth restriction (FGR) showed significant performance effects in the eye-tracking measurements but not on their Bayley scores verifying the high discriminatory value of the eye gaze data. Conclusion Visual working memory and attention as measured via eye-tracking is a non-intrusive, painless, short duration procedure (approx. 4-min) was found to be a significant tool for identifying prematurity and FGR effects on the development of cognition during the first year of life. Bayley Scales alone may not pick up these deficits. Identifying tools for early neurodevelopmental assessments and cognitive function is important in order to enable earlier support and intervention in the vulnerable group of premature infants, given the associations between foundational executive functional skills and later cognitive and academic ability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Kaltsa
- Language Development Lab, School of English, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Evgenia Babacheva
- 2 Department of Neonatology and NICU, School of Medicine, General Hospital of Papageorgiou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Georgia Fotiadou
- LingLab, School of Philology, Department of Linguistics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Evanthia Goutsiou
- 2 Department of Neonatology and NICU, School of Medicine, General Hospital of Papageorgiou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Katerina Kantziou
- 1 Neonatal Department and NICU, Hippokration General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Katerina Nicolaidis
- Phonetics Laboratory, School of English, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Vasiliki Soubasi
- 2 Department of Neonatology and NICU, School of Medicine, General Hospital of Papageorgiou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
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3
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Manrique HM, Read DW, Walker MJ. On some statistical and cerebral aspects of the limits of working memory capacity in anthropoid primates, with particular reference to Pan and Homo, and their significance for human evolution. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2024; 158:105543. [PMID: 38220036 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105543] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2023] [Revised: 12/10/2023] [Accepted: 01/09/2024] [Indexed: 01/16/2024]
Abstract
Some comparative ontogenetic data imply that effective working-memory capacity develops in ways that are independent of brain size in humans. These are interpreted better from neuroscientific considerations about the continuing development of neuronal architecture in adolescents and young adults, than from one about gross brain mass which already is reached in childhood. By contrast, working-memory capacity in Pan never develops beyond that of three- or four-year-old children. The phylogenetic divergence begs the question of whether it is any longer plausible to infer from the fossil record, that over the past two million years, an ostensibly gradual increase in endocranial volumes, assigned to the genus Homo, can be correlated in a scientifically-meaningful manner with the gradual evolution of our effective executive working memory. It is argued that whereas Pan's effective working-memory capacity is relatively similar to that of its storage working-memory, our working memory is relatively larger with deeper executive control.
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Affiliation(s)
- Héctor M Manrique
- Department of Psychology and Sociology, Universidad de Zaragoza, Campus Universitario de Teruel, Ciudad Escolar, s/n. 44003 Teruel, Spain.
| | - Dwight W Read
- Department of Anthropology and Department of Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
| | - Michael J Walker
- Department of Zoology and Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Biology, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain.
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4
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Kibbe MM, Stahl AE. Objects in a social world: Infants' object representational capacity limits are shaped by objects' social relevance. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2023; 65:69-97. [PMID: 37481301 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2023.05.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/24/2023]
Abstract
Several decades of research have revealed consistent signature limits on infants' ability to represent objects. However, these signature representational limits were established with methods that often removed objects from their most common context. In infants' everyday lives, objects are very often social artifacts: they are the targets of agents' goal-directed actions, communications, and beliefs, and may have social content or relevance themselves. In this chapter, we explore the relationship between infants' object representational capacity limits and their processing of the social world. We review evidence that the social content and context of objects can shift infants' object representational limits. We discuss how taking the social world into account can yield more robust and ecologically valid estimates of infants' early representational capacities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melissa M Kibbe
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States.
| | - Aimee E Stahl
- Department of Psychology, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ, United States
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5
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Forsberg A, Adams EJ, Cowan N. Why does visual working memory ability improve with age: More objects, more feature detail, or both? A registered report. Dev Sci 2023; 26:e13283. [PMID: 35611884 PMCID: PMC10029097 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13283] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2020] [Revised: 03/30/2022] [Accepted: 04/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
We investigated how visual working memory (WM) develops with age across the early elementary school period (6-7 years), early adolescence (11-13 years), and early adulthood (18-25 years). The work focuses on changes in two parameters: the number of objects retained at least in part, and the amount of feature-detail remembered for such objects. Some evidence suggests that, while infants can remember up to three objects, much like adults, young children only remember around two objects. This curious, nonmonotonic trajectory might be explained by differences in the level of feature-detail required for successful performance in infant versus child/adult memory paradigms. Here, we examined if changes in one of two parameters (the number of objects, and the amount of detail retained for each object) or both of them together can explain the development of visual WM ability as children grow older. To test it, we varied the amount of feature-detail participants need to retain. In the baseline condition, participants saw an array of objects and simply were to indicate whether an object was present in a probed location or not. This phase begun with a titration procedure to adjust each individual's array size to yield about 80% correct. In other conditions, we tested memory of not only location but also additional features of the objects (color, and sometimes also orientation). Our results suggest that capacity growth across ages is expressed by both improved location-memory (whether there was an object in a location) and feature completeness of object representations.
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6
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Wang JJ, Feigenson L. What aspects of counting help infants attend to numerosity? INFANCY 2023; 28:218-239. [PMID: 36382568 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12512] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2022] [Revised: 09/03/2022] [Accepted: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Recent work shows that 18-month old infants understand that counting is numerically relevant-infants who see objects counted are more likely to represent the approximate number of objects in the array than infants who see the objects labeled but not counted. Which aspects of counting signal infants to attend to numerosity in this way? Here we asked whether infants rely on familiarity with the count words in their native language, or on procedures instantiated by the counting routine, independent of specific tokens. In three experiments (N = 48), we found that 18-month old infants from English-speaking households successfully distinguished four hidden objects from two when the objects were counted correctly, regardless of their familiarity with the count words (i.e., when objects were counted in familiar English and in unfamiliar German). However, when the objects were counted using familiar English count words in ways that violated basic counting principles, infants no longer represented the arrays, failing to distinguish four hidden objects from two. Together with previous findings, these results suggest that children may link the procedure of counting with numerosity years before they learn the meanings of the count words.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jinjing Jenny Wang
- Department of Psychology, Rutgers University - New Brunswick, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA.,Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University - New Brunswick, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA
| | - Lisa Feigenson
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
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Cowan N. Working memory development: A 50-year assessment of research and underlying theories. Cognition 2022; 224:105075. [PMID: 35247864 PMCID: PMC9086174 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2021] [Revised: 12/26/2021] [Accepted: 02/23/2022] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
The author has thought about working memory, not always by that name, since 1969 and has conducted research on its infant and child development since the same year that the seminal work of Baddeley and Hitch (1974) was published. The present article assesses how the field of working memory development has been influenced since those years by major theoretical perspectives: empiricism (along with behaviorism), nativism (along with modularity), cognitivism (along with constructivism), and dynamic systems theory. The field has not fully discussed the point that these theoretical perspectives have helped to shape different kinds of proposed working memory systems, which in turn have deeply influenced what is researched and how it is researched. Here I discuss that mapping of theoretical viewpoints onto assumptions about working memory and trace the influence of this mapping on the field of working memory development. I illustrate where these influences have led in my own developmental research program over the years.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nelson Cowan
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, McAlester Hall, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
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8
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Hochmann JR. Representations of Abstract Relations in Infancy. Open Mind (Camb) 2022; 6:291-310. [PMID: 36891038 PMCID: PMC9987345 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2022] [Accepted: 10/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
relations are considered the pinnacle of human cognition, allowing for analogical and logical reasoning, and possibly setting humans apart from other animal species. Recent experimental evidence showed that infants are capable of representing the abstract relations same and different, prompting the question of the format of such representations. In a propositional language of thought, abstract relations would be represented in the form of discrete symbols. Is this format available to pre-lexical infants? We report six experiments (N = 192) relying on pupillometry and investigating how preverbal 10- to 12-month-old infants represent the relation same. We found that infants' ability to represent the relation same is impacted by the number of individual entities taking part in the relation. Infants could represent that four syllables were the same and generalized that relation to novel sequences (Experiments 1 and 4). However, they failed to generalize the relation same when it involved 5 or 6 syllables (Experiments 2-3), showing that infants' representation of the relation same is constrained by the limits of working memory capacity. Infants also failed to form a representation equivalent to all the same, which could apply to a varying number of same syllables (Experiments 5-6). These results highlight important discontinuities along cognitive development. Contrary to adults, preverbal infants lack a discrete symbol for the relation same, and rather build a representation of the relation by assembling symbols for individual entities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jean-Rémy Hochmann
- CNRS UMR5229 - Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, 67 Boulevard Pinel, 69675, Bron, France.,Université Lyon 1 Claude Bernard, France
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9
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Forsberg A, Blume CL, Cowan N. The development of metacognitive accuracy in working memory across childhood. Dev Psychol 2021; 57:1297-1317. [PMID: 34591573 PMCID: PMC8496917 DOI: 10.1037/dev0001213] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Growth in working memory capacity, the number of items kept active in mind, is thought to be an important aspect of childhood cognitive development. Here, we focused on participants' awareness of the contents of their working memory, or meta-working memory, which seems important because people can put cognitive abilities to best use only if they are aware of their limitations. In two experiments on the development of meta-working memory in children between 6 and 13 years old and adults, participants were to remember arrays of colored squares and to indicate if a probe item was in the array. On many trials, before the probe recognition test, they reported a metajudgment, how many items they thought they remembered. We compared meta-working memory judgments to actual performance and looked for associations between these measures on individual and trial-by-trial levels. Despite much lower working memory capacity in younger children there was little change in meta-working memory judgments across age groups. Consequently, younger participants were much less realistic in their metajudgments concerning their working memory capability. Higher cognitive capacity was associated with more accurate meta-working memory judgments within an age group. Trial-by-trial tuning of metajudgments was evident only in young adults and then only for small array set sizes. In sum, meta-working memory ability is a sophisticated skill that develops with age and may be an integral aspect of the development of working memory across the school years. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
- Alicia Forsberg
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri
| | | | - Nelson Cowan
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri
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10
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How do the object-file and physical-reasoning systems interact? Evidence from priming effects with object arrays or novel labels. Cogn Psychol 2021; 125:101368. [PMID: 33421683 DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101368] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2020] [Revised: 12/18/2020] [Accepted: 12/19/2020] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
How do infants reason about simple physical events such as containment, tube, and support events? According to the two-system model, two cognitive systems, the object-file (OF) and physical-reasoning (PR) systems, work together to guide infants' responses to these events. When an event begins, the OF system sends categorical information about the objects and their arrangements to the PR system. This system then categorizes the event, assigns event roles to the objects, and taps the OF system for information about features previously identified as causally relevant for the event category selected. All of the categorical and featural information included in the event's representation is interpreted by the PR system's domain knowledge, which includes core principles such as persistence and gravity. The present research tested a novel prediction of the model: If the OF system could be primed to also send, at the beginning of an event, information about an as-yet-unidentified feature, the PR system would then interpret this information using its core principles, allowing infants to detect core violations involving the feature earlier than they normally would. We examined this prediction using two types of priming manipulations directed at the OF system, object arrays and novel labels. In six experiments, infants aged 7-13 months (N = 304) were tested using different event categories and as-yet-unidentified features (color in containment events, height in tube events, and proportional distribution in support events) as well as different tasks (violation-of-expectation and action tasks). In each case, infants who were effectively primed reasoned successfully about the as-yet-unidentified feature, sometimes as early as six months before they would typically do so. These converging results provide strong support for the two-system model and for the claim that uncovering how the OF and PR systems represent and exchange information is essential for understanding how infants respond to physical events.
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Hildebrandt F, Lonnemann J, Glauer R. Why Not Just Features? Reconsidering Infants' Behavior in Individuation Tasks. Front Psychol 2020; 11:564807. [PMID: 33192839 PMCID: PMC7609897 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.564807] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2020] [Accepted: 09/22/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is assumed to be fundamental in the development of infants' ontology within the object-first account. It crucially relies on an object-file (OF) system, representing both spatiotemporal ("where") and categorical ("what") information about objects as solid, cohesive bodies moving continuously in space and time. However, infants' performance in tasks requiring them to use featural information to detect individuation violations appears to be at odds with the object-first account. In such cases, infants do not appear to be able to develop correct expectations about the numerosity of objects. Recently, proponents of the object-first account proposed that these individuation failures result from integration errors between the OF system and an additional physical reasoning system. We are going to argue that the predictions of a feature-based physical-reasoning (PR) system are sufficient for explaining infants' behavior. The striking predictive power of the PR system calls into question the relevance of the OF system and, thereby, challenges the assumption that infants can individuate objects early on.
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Affiliation(s)
- Frauke Hildebrandt
- Department of Social and Educational Science, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Jan Lonnemann
- Empirical Childhood Research, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Ramiro Glauer
- Department of Social and Educational Science, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
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12
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Individually distinctive features facilitate numerical discrimination of sets of objects in domestic chicks. Sci Rep 2020; 10:16408. [PMID: 33009471 PMCID: PMC7532216 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-73431-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2020] [Accepted: 09/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Day-old domestic chicks approach the larger of two groups of identical objects, but in a 3 vs 4 comparison, their performance is random. Here we investigated whether adding individually distinctive features to each object would facilitate such discrimination. Chicks reared with 7 objects were presented with the operation 1 + 1 + 1 vs 1 + 1 + 1 + 1. When objects were all identical, chicks performed randomly, as expected (Experiment 1). In the remaining experiments, objects differed from one another due to additional features. Chicks succeeded when those features were differently oriented segments (Experiment 2) but failed when the features were arranged to depict individually different face-like displays (Experiment 3). Discrimination was restored if the face-like stimuli were presented upside-down, disrupting global processing (Experiment 4). Our results support the claim that numerical discrimination in 3 vs 4 comparison benefits from the presence of distinctive features that enhance object individuation due to individual processing. Interestingly, when the distinctive features are arranged into upright face-like displays, the process is susceptible to global over local interference due to configural processing. This study was aimed at assessing whether individual object processing affects numerical discrimination. We hypothesise that in humans similar strategies aimed at improving performance at the non-symbolic level may have positive effects on symbolic mathematical abilities.
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Cheng C, Kaldy Z, Blaser E. Coding of featural information in visual working memory in 2.5-year-old toddlers. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2020; 55:100892. [PMID: 34305310 PMCID: PMC8297794 DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100892] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
The number of objects that infants can remember in visual working memory (VWM) increases rapidly during the first few years of life (Kaldy & Leslie, 2005; Ross-Sheehy, Oakes, & Luck, 2003). However, less is understood about the representational format of VWM: whether storage is determined by fixed-precision memory slots, or the allocation of a limited continuous resource. In the current study, we adapted the Delayed Match Retrieval eye-tracking paradigm (Kaldy, Guillory, & Blaser, 2016), to test 2.5-year-old toddlers' ability to remember three object-location bindings when the to-be-remembered objects were all unique (Experiment 1) versus when they shared features such as color or shape (Experiment 2). 2.5-year-olds succeeded in Experiment 1, but only performed marginally better than chance in Experiment 2. Interestingly, when incorrect, participants in Experiment 2 were no more likely to select a decoy item that shared a feature with the target item. It seems that the increased similarity of to-be-remembered objects did not impair memory for the objects directly, but instead increased the likelihood of catastrophic forgetting.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chen Cheng
- University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, United States
- Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Zsuzsa Kaldy
- University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Erik Blaser
- University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, United States
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Endress AD, Szabó S. Sequential Presentation Protects Working Memory From Catastrophic Interference. Cogn Sci 2020; 44:e12828. [PMID: 32368830 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12828] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2017] [Revised: 01/09/2020] [Accepted: 02/13/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Abstract
Neural network models of memory are notorious for catastrophic interference: Old items are forgotten as new items are memorized (French, 1999; McCloskey & Cohen, 1989). While working memory (WM) in human adults shows severe capacity limitations, these capacity limitations do not reflect neural network style catastrophic interference. However, our ability to quickly apprehend the numerosity of small sets of objects (i.e., subitizing) does show catastrophic capacity limitations, and this subitizing capacity and WM might reflect a common capacity. Accordingly, computational investigations (Knops, Piazza, Sengupta, Eger & Melcher, 2014; Sengupta, Surampudi & Melcher, 2014) suggest that mutual inhibition among neurons can explain both kinds of capacity limitations as well as why our ability to estimate the numerosity of larger sets is limited according to a Weber ratio signature. Based on simulations with a saliency map-like network and mathematical proofs, we provide three results. First, mutual inhibition among neurons leads to catastrophic interference when items are presented simultaneously. The network can remember a limited number of items, but when more items are presented, the network forgets all of them. Second, if memory items are presented sequentially rather than simultaneously, the network remembers the most recent items rather than forgetting all of them. Hence, the tendency in WM tasks to sequentially attend even to simultaneously presented items might not only reflect attentional limitations, but also an adaptive strategy to avoid catastrophic interference. Third, the mean activation level in the network can be used to estimate the number of items in small sets, but it does not accurately reflect the number of items in larger sets. Rather, we suggest that the Weber ratio signature of large number discrimination emerges naturally from the interaction between the limited precision of a numeric estimation system and a multiplicative gain control mechanism.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Szilárd Szabó
- Department of Mathematics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics
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15
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Stavans M, Lin Y, Wu D, Baillargeon R. Catastrophic individuation failures in infancy: A new model and predictions. Psychol Rev 2019; 126:196-225. [PMID: 30550314 PMCID: PMC6600085 DOI: 10.1037/rev0000136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Comparison of infant findings from the physical-reasoning and object-individuation literatures reveals a contradictory picture. On the one hand, physical-reasoning results indicate that young infants can use featural information to guide their actions on objects and to detect interaction violations (when objects interact in ways that are not physically possible) as well as change violations (when objects spontaneously undergo featural changes that are not physically possible). On the other hand, object-individuation results indicate that young infants typically cannot use featural information to detect individuation violations (when the number of objects revealed at the end of an event is less than the number of objects introduced during the event). In this article, we attempt to reconcile these two bodies of research. In a new model of early individuation, we propose that two systems help infants individuate objects in physical events: the object-file and physical-reasoning systems. Under certain conditions, disagreements between the systems result in catastrophic individuation failures, leading infants to hold no expectation at all about how many objects are present. We report experiments with 9- to 11-month-old infants (N = 216) that tested predictions from the model. After two objects emerged in alternation from behind a screen, infants detected no violation when the screen was lowered to reveal no object. Similarly, after two objects emerged in alternation from inside a box, which was then shaken, infants detected no violation when the box remained silent, as though empty. We end with new directions, suggested by our model, for research on early object representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
- Maayan Stavans
- Psychology Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel
| | - Yi Lin
- Psychology Department, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, USA
| | - Di Wu
- Psychology Department, Cedarville University, Cedarville, OH 45314, USA
| | - Renée Baillargeon
- Psychology Department, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, USA
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16
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Wang JJ, Feigenson L. Infants recognize counting as numerically relevant. Dev Sci 2019; 22:e12805. [PMID: 30719820 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12805] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2018] [Revised: 11/26/2018] [Accepted: 01/27/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Children do not understand the meanings of count words like "two" and "three" until the preschool years. But even before knowing the meanings of these individual words, might they recognize that counting is "about" the dimension of number? Here in five experiments, we asked whether infants already associate counting with quantities. We measured 14- and 18-month olds' ability to remember different numbers of hidden objects that either were or were not counted by an experimenter before hiding. As in previous research, we found that infants failed to differentiate four hidden objects from two when the objects were not counted-suggesting an upper limit on the number of individual objects they could represent in working memory. However, infants succeeded when the objects were simply counted aloud before hiding. We found that counting also helped infants differentiate four hidden objects from six (a 2:3 ratio), but not three hidden objects from four (a 3:4 ratio), suggesting that counting helped infants represent the arrays' approximate cardinalities. Hence counting directs infants' attention to numerical aspects of the world, showing that they recognize counting as numerically relevant years before acquiring the meanings of number words.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jinjing Jenny Wang
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
| | - Lisa Feigenson
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
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17
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Ferrara K, Furlong S, Park S, Landau B. Detailed Visual Memory Capacity Is Present Early in Childhood. Open Mind (Camb) 2017; 1:136-147. [PMID: 30931420 PMCID: PMC6436559 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2017] [Accepted: 08/24/2017] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that adults are able to remember more than 1,000 images with great detail. However, little is known about the development of this visual capacity, nor its presence early in life. This study tests the level of detail of young children's memory for a large number of items, adapting the method of Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, and Oliva (2008). Four- and six-year-old children were shown more than 100 images of everyday objects. They were then tested for recognition of familiar items in a binary decision task. The identity of the foil test item was manipulated in three conditions (Category, Exemplar, and State). Children demonstrated high accuracy across all conditions, remembering not only the basic-level category (Category), but also unique details (Exemplar), and information about position and arrangement of parts (State). These findings demonstrate that children spontaneously encode a high degree of visual detail. Early in life, visual memory exhibits high fidelity and extends over a large set of items.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sarah Furlong
- Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University
| | - Soojin Park
- Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University
- Department of Psychology, Yonsei University
| | - Barbara Landau
- Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University
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Cowan N. Working Memory Maturation: Can We Get at the Essence of Cognitive Growth? PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2017; 11:239-64. [PMID: 26993277 DOI: 10.1177/1745691615621279] [Citation(s) in RCA: 108] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The theoretical and practical understanding of cognitive development depends on working memory, the limited information temporarily accessible for such daily activities as language processing and problem solving. In this article, I assess many possible reasons that working memory performance improves with development. A first glance at the literature leads to the weird impression that working memory capacity reaches adult levels during infancy but then regresses during childhood. In place of that unlikely explanation, I consider how infant studies may lead to overestimates of capacity if one neglects supports that the tasks provide, compared with adult-level tasks. Further development of working memory during the school years is also considered. Many investigators have come to suspect that working memory capacity may be constant after infancy because of various factors such as developmental increases in knowledge, filtering out of irrelevant distractions, encoding and rehearsal strategies, and pattern formation. With each of these factors controlled, though, working memory still improves during the school years. Suggestions are made for research to bridge the gap between infant and child developmental research, to understand the focus and control of attention in working memory and how these skills develop, and to pinpoint the nature of capacity and its development from infancy forward.
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Mental Objects in Working Memory: Development of Basic Capacity or of Cognitive Completion? ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2017; 52:81-104. [PMID: 28215289 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2016.12.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Working memory is the small amount of information that we hold in mind and use to carry out cognitive processes such as language comprehension and production, problem solving, and decision making. In order to understand cognitive development, it would be helpful to know whether working memory increases in capacity with development and, if so, how and why. I will focus on two major stumbling blocks toward understanding working memory development, namely that (1) many potentially relevant aspects of the mind change in parallel during development, obscuring the role of any one change; and (2) one cannot use the same test procedure from infancy to adulthood, complicating comparisons across age groups. With regard to the first stumbling block, the parallel development of different aspects of the mind, we discuss research in which attempts were made to hold constant some factors (knowledge, strategies, direction of attention) to investigate whether developmental differences remain. With regard to the second stumbling block, procedural differences in tests for different age groups, I suggest ways in which the results might be reconciled across procedures. I highlight the value of pursuing research that could distinguish between two different key hypotheses that emerge: that there is a developmental increase in the number of working memory slots (or in a basic resource that holds items in working memory), and that there is a developmental increase in the amount of detail that each of these slots can hold.
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