Perceptual and positional saliencies influence children's sequence learning differently with age and instructions at test.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
; 70(11): 2219-2233, 2017 Nov.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-27618880
ABSTRACT
There is growing evidence that, faced with a complex environment, participants subdivide the incoming information into small perceptual units, called chunks. Although statistical properties have been identified as playing a key role in chunking, we wanted to determine whether perceptual (repetitions) and positional (initial units) features might provide immediate guidance for the parsing of information into chunks. Children aged 5 and 8 years were exposed to sequences of 3, 4, or 5 colours. Sequence learning was assessed either through an explicit generation test (Experiment 1) or through a recognition test (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed that perceptual and positional saliencies benefited learning and that sensitivity to repetitions was age dependent and permitted the formation of longer chunks (trigrams) in the oldest children. Experiment 2 suggested that children became sensitive to perceptual and positional saliencies regardless of age and that the both types of saliencies supported the formation of longer chunks in the oldest children. The discussion focuses on the multiple factors intervening in sequence learning and their differential effects as a function of the instructions used at test to assess sequence learning.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Psychomotor Performance
/
Serial Learning
/
Space Perception
/
Aging
/
Conditioning, Operant
Type of study:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
Journal subject:
PSICOFISIOLOGIA
/
PSICOLOGIA
Year:
2017
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Francia