Statistical Learning in Perception

Synonyms

Associative learning; Contextual cueing; Segmentation; Unsupervised learning

Definition

In cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, statistical learning (SL) refers to the extraction of regularities in how features and objects co-occur in the environment over space and time. Such learning may be important for detecting and representing higher-order units of perception, such as words, scenes, and events. SL is defined by three criteria: First, it can operate over undifferentiated input, where only spatial and temporal probabilities can be used to determine which parts of the environment go together; other segmentation cues, such as grouping, are not required. Second, SL occurs incidentally as a by-product of perception, without intentional effort or conscious awareness. Third, SL is concerned with extracting how particularfeatures and objects co-occur, resulting in knowledge about relationships between specific stimuli. These properties make SL well suited to the...