Perceptual and positional saliencies influence children's sequence learning differently with age and instructions at test

Catégorie

Journal Article

Auteurs

Witt, A., Vinter, A.

Année

2017

Titre

Perceptual and positional saliencies influence children's sequence learning differently with age and instructions at test

Journal / Livre / Conférence

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Résumé

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.

Volume

70

Pages

2219-2233

Mots-clés

sequence learning, parsing, chunks, development, perceptual and positional saliencies

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