Infants’ ability to detect and generalize abstract rules (e.g.,
ABB, ABA) in auditory stimuli has been well documented,
however their ability to do so from visual stimuli has received
considerably less attention. Moreover, the few studies
reported suggest that this kind of learning is especially
sensitive to details of the experimental design. Here, we focus
on 3- to 4-month-old infants (N=40) to identify both the
origins of visual abstract rule learning in infancy and the
conditions that best support it. Our results provide the earliest
evidence to date, documenting that by 3 months of age,
infants successfully learn and generalize rules in the visual
modality. They also reveal that providing infants with an
opportunity to examine the stimuli simultaneously may be
instrumental to their success.