Sybren Spit 1, Andreea Geambașu 1, Daan van Renswoude 1, Elma Blom 2, Paula Fikkert 3, Sabine Hunnius 3, Caroline Junge 2, Josje Verhagen 4, Ingmar Visser 4, Frank Wijnen 2, Clara C. Levelt 1 1 Leiden University; 2 Utrecht University; 3 Radboud University; 4 University of Amsterdam
We offer close replications of two seminal infant studies, Marcus et al. (1999) and Kovács & Mehler (2009). Marcus et al. (1999) showed that after a brief auditory exposure phase, seven-month-old infants were able to learn and generalize a rule to novel syllables not previously present in the exposure phase. This study was fundamental for the idea that infants are able to form abstract representations and generalize linguistic rules. Kovács & Mehler (2009) showed that seven-month-olds who had been exposed to two languages from birth outperformed monolingual infants in a series of visual switch tasks, suggesting that babies exposed to multiple languages may experience a cognitive boost at an early age. Across four labs, we conducted exact replications of these two studies. For both experiments, we used the original methodology and stimuli. As in the original studies, we tested the hypotheses that 1) infants are able to learn abstract algebraic rules and apply them to novel input, and 2) that bilingual infants already show a cognitive advantage. We are currently in the final stages of data collection. In this talk we will present results from 96 children for the Marcus et al. replication, and data from 100 to 200 infants for the Kovacs & Mehler replication - data collection terminates December 1, or upon reaching this number. This project aims to solidify the results of two seminal studies addressing fundamental questions concerning human cognition.
