Long-term memory for context-specific category information at six months.
The ability of 6-month-old infants to remember a functional category acquired in a specific context was assessed in 3 experiments via an operant procedure in which infants learned to perform a specific action (a footkick) to activate an object suspended before them. In Experiment 1, infants trained with different exemplars in the same context transferred responding to a novel exemplar in the same but not a different context 24 hours later. Experiment 2 revealed that infants' reactivated memory of category training remained intact and context-specific after 3 weeks. In Experiment 3, a novel category exemplar was able to reactivate the forgotten memory of category training only in the encoding context. At 6 months, information about the place where categories are constructed is prerequisite for retrieval of a category concept from long-term memory. This requirement insures that early category concepts remain stable over relatively long periods.
Shields
P J
PJ
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903.
Rovee-Collier
C
C
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011897:Random Allocation; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D013997:Time Factors