Infants' memory for context: timing effects of postevent information.
How infants' memories of the context or place where an event occurred are selectively distorted was studied in 6-month-olds, who kicked to activate a mobile in a distinctive context for 2 days and then saw that mobile in a different context for 2 min either 1 or 6 days later. Infants whose exposure delay was 1 day failed to recognize the mobile in either the original or the exposed context but did so in a completely novel one. Infants whose exposure delay was 6 days--after the details of the original context were forgotten--recognized the mobile in the exposed context and no other, and the mobile could reactivate the forgotten memory only in the exposed context and no other. In effect, the details of the exposed context appeared to have been substituted in memory for the original details that had been forgotten. Thus, when components of an event are encountered later in a new context, that new context may be falsely remembered as being where the event had actually occurred, and the original context may be forgotten altogether. This error is more likely when a memory is older and may underlie some of the inaccuracies of childrens' and adults' recollections of their prior experiences.
Boller
K
K
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA.
Rovee-Collier
C
C
Gulya
M
M
Prete
K
K
D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D011939:Mental Recall; D009042:Motivation; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012931:Social Environment