Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: The ability to learn and apply rules lies at the heart of cognition. In a seminal study, Marcus et al.(1999) reported that 7-month-old infants learned abstract rules over syllable sequences and wereable to generalize those rules to novel syllable sequences. Dozens of studies have since replicatedthat finding and extended it using different rules, modalities, stimuli, participants (human adultsand non-human animals) and experimental procedures. Yet questions remain about thegeneralizability of Marcus et al.’s (1999) core findings, and sources of variation across thesefindings. In the current study, we address this issue by testing 839 infants of a wide age range(5;0-12;0 months) in a multi-laboratory (30 laboratories, [31 samples]) conceptual replication ofthe Marcus et al. (1999) study. This study and the analyses were submitted as a registered report.A mixed-model analysis of the looking times at consistent vs. inconsistent test trials indicated nosignificant effect. The current study therefore finds no evidence for rule-learning; to the contrary, aBayesian analysis of the data indicated strong evidence for a null effect. This was similarly thecase for the moderating factors that were part of the design: mono- vs. multilingualism, age, andexperimental paradigm; none of these factors showed significant effects. Robustness analysesindicated that the results were not different in the case of different choices in the (pre-)processingof the data. A follow-up analysis for single labs indicated that there was no evidence ofrule-learning in 30 of the 31 contributed samples. The current finding raises fundamental issuesabout rule-learning that are presented in Discussion.
Authors: Ingmar Visser, Andreea Geambașu, George Kachergis, Catia M Oliveira, Joscelin Rocha-Hidalgo, Martin Zettersten, Teruni Malaika Ahamat, Nicolás Alessandroni, Nadja Althaus, Sudha Arunachalam, Suzanne Aussems, Emma Axelsson, Zeynep Aydin, Heidi A Baumgartner, Christina Bergmann, Roberta Bettoni, Alexis Black, Hermann Bulf, Krista Byers-Heinlein, Chiara Capparini, Lily Carroll, Christian Alexander Carstensen, Rebekka Cebulla, Xiaoyun Chen, Katerina Chladkova, Benedetta Colavolpe, Rodica Constantine, Elisabet Eir Cortes, Frances L. Doyle, Anna Exner, Samuel H. Forbes, Laura Franchin, Alessandra Geraci, Judit Gervain, Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez, Silje Hagelund, Erin Hannon, Naomi Havron, Sagi Jaffe-Dax, Scott Johnson, Wiktoria Jędryczka, Natalia Kartushina, Melissa Kline Struhl, Ada Koleini, Abhinav Kona, Shannon Kong, Jessica Elizabeth Kosie, Monika Kučerová, Katerina Kynclova, Jared Leslie, Casey Lew-Williams, Scarlet Wan Yee Li, romi livne, Ellen Marklund, Julien Mayor, Michał Misiak, David Moreau, Jutta L. Mueller, Amber Muhinyi, Alyssa Quinn, Maartje Eusebia Josefa Raijmakers, Audun Rosslund, Iris-Corinna Schwarz, Jeanne L. Shinskey, Mohinish Shukla, Sylvain Sirois, Piotr Sorokowski, Basma Sowan, Tibor Tauzin, Angeline Tsui, Martina Turconi, Rebeca Urizar, Lisa Wagner, Stephanie Wermelinger, Gert Westermann, Ivonne Weyers, Luiza Yuan, Martina Stefanova Zaharieva, Tania S. Zamuner, Barbara Zapiór, simone zasso, Grace Zhou, Melanie Soderstrom, Clara Levelt
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Awards: The ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development, G1138346925, G1219913396, G1242471387, G2327242446, G2788325781, G2869251467, G3215670321, G3793356882, G4726586117, G5461491055, G598502428, The discourse of national identity in British and German romanticism, G7422669998, G7939083414, G886909004, G972786147
OpenAlex ID: W4413781600