Infant memory for place information

Abstract

The present studies were designed to examine the role of place cues in memory retrieval during early infancy. Three-month-old infants were trained to move a mobile by kicking. Two weeks later, memory retrieval was disrupted ifthey were reminded in a location or place different from where they had been trained, but not if they were reminded in the same place (Experiment lA). The same result was obtained even though highly salient cues in their immediate visual surround remained unchanged during reminding (Experiments IB and lC). No disruption was seen, however, when retrieval was cued in a different place after only 1 day (Experiment 2). These findings unequivocally demonstrate that infants as young as 3 months encode incidental information about the place where an event occurs and suggest that early memories are buffered against retrieval in potentially inappropriate contexts over the long term.Most theories of human memory propose that information about the place where an event occurs is represented in the memory of that event and is critical in its subsequent retrieval (e.g.,

Remembering and forgetting as context discrimination.

“…According to two different models (two-high-threshold and signal detection), there is a true decrease in discrimination for stimuli that have few, if any, alternate semantic interpretations. Similarly, although it is often thought that infants do not encode contextual information (e.g., Nadel et al 1985), a series of experiments by Hayne et al (1991 ) clearly demonstrate that infants as young as 3 months encode contextual information about the place where learning occurred and, the results suggest, this information can affect whether a particular memory is expressed at a later time.…”

Generalization of deferred imitation during the first year of life

“…However, in that study, the magnitude of the context change between training and testing (e.g., home vs laboratory) was large relative to the magnitude of context changes in prior operant studies, which had involved either a change of room in the infants' homes or a change in the cloth panel that was in view during training. Hayne, Rovee-Collier, and Borza (1991), for example, trained 3-month-olds in an operant mobile task in a portacrib in the bedroom and then reminded them in the portacrib in the kitchen (or vice versa) before testing them 24 h later where they were trained. Reminding in the room where infants were trained alleviated forgetting, whereas reminding in a diVerent (albeit familiar) 2 room did not.…”

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

“…At 6 months, a context change impairs retention after both 1 day and 3 days but has no effect on retention after longer delays (Borovsky & Rovee-Collier, 1990;Shields & Rovee-Collier, 1992). At both ages, training in one room and testing in another one has the same effect as training in the presence of a distinctive cloth panel and testing in the presence of another one (Borovsky & Rovee-Collier, 1990;Butler & RoveeCollier, 1989;Hartshorn & Rovee-Collier, 1997;Hayne et al, 1991).…”

“…Recent research with both animal (Richardson, Riccio, & McKenney, 1988) and human infants (for review, see Rovee-Collier, 1997), however, has challenged this belief. For 3-month-old human infants, changing the context at the time of testing has no impact on retention after 1 day (Butler & RoveeCollier, 1989;Hayne, Rovee-Collier, & Borza, 1991) but impairs it after longer delays (Butler & RoveeCollier, 1989;Rovee-Collier, Griesler, & Earley, 1985). At 6 months, a context change impairs retention after both 1 day and 3 days but has no effect on retention after longer delays (Borovsky & Rovee-Collier, 1990;Shields & Rovee-Collier, 1992).…”

“…In addition, memory reactivation is impaired by a context change at both 3 months (Butler & RoveeCollier, 1989;Hayne et al, 1991) and 6 months (Borovsky & Rovee-Collier, 1990;Hartshorn & RoveeCollier, 1997), and at both ages, context-dependent retrieval can be overridden by training infants in multiple contexts (Amabile & Rovee-Collier, 1991;Rovee-Collier & DuFault, 1991). We have not tested 2-month-olds in an altered context, but we have attempted to enhance their long-term retention by training and testing them in a highly distinctive context.…”