Exemplar spacing and infants' memory for category information

Developmental changes in the specificity of memory over the first year of life

“…The effect on retention of changing the original focal cue at the time of testing has been studied with 2-to 6-month-olds in the mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm (Butler & Rovee-Collier, 1989;Gulya, 1996; Hayne et al, 1986;Hill et al, 1988;Merriman et al, 1997;Rovee-Collier, Earley, & Stafford, 1989;Rovee-Collier & Sullivan, 1980) and with 12-to 21-month-olds in the deferred imitation paradigm (Hayne et al, 1997). The results of these studies differ markedly, but whether the differences are due to differences in age or in paradigm is unclear.…”

“…At 2, 3, and 6 months of age, infants who are tested with a novel mobile in a distinctive context exhibit no retention after any delay that they otherwise remember the task (Boller et al, 1995;Butler & Rovee-Collier, 1989;Gulya, 1996;Hill et al, 1988;Merriman et al, 1997). Moreover, the cues that are required to retrieve their memory of the training stimulus are highly specific.…”

Infants' long‐term memory for a serial list: Recognition and reactivation

“…During paired-comparison tests with a familiar and novel face, infants exhibited both primacy and recency effects after the shortest test delay (5 s) but only a primacy effect after the longest test delay (5 min). Given the latter result, the fact that Merriman et al (1997) obtained a primacy effect after a 24-hour delay with 3-and 6-month-olds who had been trained for three, relatively long sessions is not surprising. In mobile studies, however, even 24 hr is not a very long test delay; 3-and 6-month-olds typically remember for 1 and 2 weeks, respectively.…”

“…This constraint, however, does not apply to all studies of list learning. Recently, for example, we found that human infants not only can learn a serial list of arbitrarily ordered items, but also can remember item order 24 hr later (Gulya, Rovee-Collier, Galluccio, & Wilk, 1998;Merriman, Rovee-Collier, & Wilk, 1997). In these studies, we used a serial-probe recognition procedure (a yes/no behavioral test) that was originally developed for studies of list learning by animals (Wright, Santiago, Sands, Kendrick, & Cook, 1985).…”

“…In the initial study, 3-and 6-month-olds were trained for three sessions in the mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm with a serial list composed of three different mobiles (Merriman et al, 1997). Twenty-four hours later, when independent groups of infants were tested with a mobile from each serial position, both ages recognized only the ®rst mobile on the listÐa classic primacy effect.…”