Relating 7‐Month‐Olds Visuo‐Spatial Working Memory to Other Basic Mental Skills Assessed With Two Different Versions of the Habituation–Dishabituation Paradigm

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between various basic mental processing abilities in infancy. Two groups of 7‐month‐olds received the same delayed‐response task to assess visuo‐spatial working memory, but two different habituation–dishabituation tasks to assess processing speed and recognition memory. The single‐stimulus group (N = 32) was familiarized with only one abstract stimulus, whereas the categorization group (N = 32) received varying exemplars of the same kind. In the categorization group, infants high on working memory showed stronger habituation and dishabituation responses than infants scoring low in working memory. No corresponding relations were found for the single‐stimulus group. This suggests that working memory performance is systematically linked to other basic mental skills in 7‐month‐olds, but that corresponding relations may not get evident in any kind of habituation–dishabituation procedure. Implications for understanding the complex interplay of basic mental abilities in infancy will be discussed.

Infants’ fast neural categorization of artificial objects: The impact of stimulus and task characteristics.

“…To test the role of basic perceptual information (i.e., amplitude spectrum, luminance, contrast) and configurational information (i.e., part-configuration, Gestalt information) for brain responses related to perceptual categorization in 7-month-old infants, two sets of stimuli were created: One consisting of artificial colored objects that show a clear symmetrical organization of different parts, hence revealing a specific "Gestalt" or configuration. These stimuli closely matched those designed for a behavioral study conducted earlier by Pahnke (2007; see also Ropeter & Pauen, 2013) who found that 7-month-old infants can discriminate individual exemplars, but also group them in categories. The other set consists of the very same stimuli presented in a phase-scrambled format, thus lacking any Gestalt/configurational information.…”

“…Images of 20 artificial objects (10 per category) were created that closely matched those of previous studies (Pahnke, 2007; Ropeter & Pauen, 2013) using PowerPoint © . Each configurational stimulus consisted of a central part and multiple pedal-like parts, arranged symmetrically around it.…”

Frequency tagging with infants: The visual oddball paradigm

“…At every fifth position, the type of stimulus changed, corresponding to 1.2 Hz (6/5 = 1.2, see Figure 2 ). Two types of stimuli were employed, red-orange/curvy shapes and blue-green/straight-edged shapes, with 10 individual exemplars of each type varying in size, color and number of pedals and parts ( Pahnke, 2007 ; Ropeter and Pauen, 2013 ). Global luminance contrast did not differ across categories ( p > 0.05).…”