Long-Term Retention in 3.5-Month-Olds: Familiarization Time and Individual Differences in Attentional Style

Using a paired-comparison procedure, we examined the effect of familiarization variables on 3.5-month-old infants' ( n = 120) retention of dynamic visual stimuli after 1-min, 1-day, and 1-month delays. The proportion of total looking time to the novel stimulus revealed novelty, null, and famili...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental child psychology 2001-07, Vol.79 (3), p.271-293
Main Authors: Courage, Mary L., Howe, Mark L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Attention - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Child development
Child Development - physiology
Developmental psychology
Familiarity
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gaze Duration
Humans
Individual Differences
Infant
Infant Behavior
Infants
Long Term Memory
long-term retention
Male
Memory
Newborn. Infant
Paired Comparisons
Performance Factors
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Random Allocation
Recognition (Psychology)
recognition memory
Retention (Psychology)
Retention (Psychology) - physiology
Time Factors
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:Using a paired-comparison procedure, we examined the effect of familiarization variables on 3.5-month-old infants' ( n = 120) retention of dynamic visual stimuli after 1-min, 1-day, and 1-month delays. The proportion of total looking time to the novel stimulus revealed novelty, null, and familiarity preferences after 1-min, 1-day, and 1-month delays, respectively, for infants who were permitted 30 s of familiarization time. Twenty seconds of familiarization time was insufficient to produce novelty preferences. These results support models of infant retention in which the direction of attentional preferences (novel, familiar, or null) depends on memory accessibility. To examine the impact of individual differences in familiarization or attentional style on memory, infants were identified as long or short lookers according to their peak-look duration on pretest and familiarization trial measures. Compared to long lookers, short lookers showed better retention over time indicating that much of the variability in the infant group data could be accounted for by these individual differences.
ISSN:0022-0965
1096-0457
DOI:10.1006/jecp.2000.2606