Familiarity and novelty preferences in infant recognition memory: Implications for information processing.

Abstract

Some investigators have suggested that young infants show a preference for familiar stimuli, which is supplanted by a preference for novel stimuli as they get older and the act of recognition becomes commonplace. We have carried out two studies that fail to support this developmental view but suggest instead that shifts in preference reflect phases in information processing that occur within a given age; it is only the speed of processing that changes across ages. In the first study, infants aged 3'/2, 4 ! /a, and 6'/2 months were tested for visual recognition memory of shapes, using the paired comparison procedure. Each problem consisted of a familiarization period followed by a test during which the familiar and novel member of the pair were both presented. The 3'/4-month-olds showed a strong preference for the familiar; the 416-, and especially the 6'/£-month-olds, showed a preference for the novel. In the second study, however, these shifts were found to depend more on familiarization time than on age. Here, infants aged 3 l /2 months were allowed either 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 sec of familiarization; those aged 6'/a months were allowed either 5, 10, or 15 sec. Infants of both ages showed a preference for the familiar stimulus after limited exposure to it (10 and 5 sec, respectively); this preference shifted to a preference for the novel stimulus after more extended exposure (30 and 15 sec, respectively). It would appear that, regardless of age, infants prefer to look at that which is familiar as they begin to process a stimulus; once processing becomes more advanced, their preference shifts to the novel.

Serial-position effects in infants’ recognition memory

“…Based on pilot work involving 11 infants who received recognition tests identical to those in the present study, the Pearson coefficient of correlation between observed fixation times was .93, with almost identical totals for mean fixation times recorded by the two observers. This agreement is typical in laboratories using the same apparatus and measurement procedures (see Fagan, 1976, andRose et al, 1982). measures analysis of variance [F(3,645 In sum, when the babies studied faces ordered in distributed blocks, the attractiveness of the faces appeared to wane in a monotonic fashion, both within and across blocks.…”

Growth and visual information processing in infants in Southern Ethiopia

“…The strong preference for the familiar stimulus exhibited by most of the infants is more typical of very young infants (Rose et al, 1982), not 6-8 month olds. The shift rates of visual fixations (.11 per second during familiarization, .12 during test phases) were also low relative to those reported by Rose et al (2002).…”

“…Of the original 100 infants, 26 failed to complete the minimum three trials because of excessive crying, fussing, or maternal interference (e.g., holding the infant's head in the direction of the stimuli). In addition, the data from five participants were discarded from analyses because they failed to accumulate at least 5 s of looking time during familiarization on three or more trials (Rose et al, 1982;Rose et al, 1995). We tested for differences between the infants included (3-4 trials) versus excluded (0-2 trials) by age (p = .40), sex (p = .42), head circumference (p = .64), weight (p = .42), or length (p = .09).…”

Accounting for change in declarative memory: A cognitive neuroscience perspective

“…Isaac, & Mayes, 2004). In addition, studies with infants and adults have demonstrated that performance on the VPC task is affected by study time, retention interval, and context change in the same way that these variables affect adults' performance on other measures of declarative memory (Bahrick & Pickens, 1995;Richmond, Sowerby, Colombo, & Hayne, 2004;Robinson & Pascalis, 2004;Rose, Gottfried, Melloy-Carminar, & Bridger, 1982).…”

“…When tested on the VPC task, the length of familiarization phase required for infants to exhibit novelty preferences decreases as a function of age (see Rose et al, 1982), so much so that researchers working with different age groups often use infant-controlled familiarization procedures (Diamond, 1995;Pascalis, de Haan, Nelson, & de Schonen, 1998), or design studies allowing younger infants longer familiarization times than older infants (Colombo, Mitchell, & Horowitz, 1988;Jacobs, 2000;Rose, Feldman, & Jankowski, 2001). Similarly, when tested on a deferred imitation task, 6-month olds require a demonstration period that is twice the length of that used with 12-month-old infants, in order to exhibit equivalent imitation performance after a delay (Barr, Dowden, & Hayne, 1996).…”