Human infants, like immature members of any species, must be highly selective in sampling information from their environment to learn efficiently. Failure to be selective would waste precious computational resources on material that is already known (too simple) or unknowable (too complex). In two experiments with 7- and 8-month-olds, we measure infants’ visual attention to sequences of events varying in complexity, as determined by an ideal learner model. Infants’ probability of looking away was greatest on stimulus items whose complexity (negative log probability) according to the model was either very low or very high. These results suggest a principle of infant attention that may have broad applicability: infants implicitly seek to maintain intermediate rates of information absorption and avoid wasting cognitive resources on overly simple or overly complex events.
The Goldilocks Effect: Human Infants Allocate Attention to Visual Sequences That Are Neither Too Simple Nor Too Complex
Celeste Kidd,S. Piantadosi,R. Aslin
Published 2012 in PLoS ONE
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2012
- Venue
PLoS ONE
- Publication date
2012-05-23
- Fields of study
Medicine, Computer Science, Psychology
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
CONCEPTS
- 7- and 8-month-old infants
The infant age groups tested in the two experiments reported in the abstract.
Aliases: 7-month-olds, 8-month-olds
- goldilocks effect
A pattern in which infants preferentially engage with events of intermediate complexity rather than extremes of simplicity or complexity.
Aliases: Goldilocks principle
- ideal learner model
The computational learner model used to estimate the complexity of the stimulus items.
Aliases: learner model
- infant attention
The visual allocation and disengagement behavior of the infant participants while viewing the event sequences.
Aliases: attentional allocation in infants
- intermediate information absorption
An attentional operating point in which input is neither too simple nor too complex for efficient learning.
Aliases: intermediate absorption
- looking away
A measured disengagement response indicating that an infant stops fixating on a stimulus.
Aliases: probability of looking away
- model-based complexity
The complexity score assigned to each stimulus item using the learner model's negative log probability.
Aliases: complexity, negative log probability
- visual sequences
The ordered sequences of events presented to infants as the experimental stimuli.
Aliases: stimulus sequences, event sequences
REFERENCES
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