Infants' learning, memory, and generalization of learning for bimodal events.
Study 1 investigated whether infants 3 and 7 months of age show differential learning of and memory for sight-sound pairs depending on whether or not temporal synchrony was present; memory was assessed after a 10-min and 1-week interval. Study 2 examined whether 7-month-olds show generalization of learning when they encounter novel bimodal events that are similar (changes in size, orientation, or color, and spectral sound properties) to the sight-sound pairs learned 1 week earlier based on temporal synchrony. For Study 1, infants received a familiarization phase followed by a paired-comparison preference procedure to assess for learning of the sight-sound pairs. One week later a memory test was given. Results confirmed that 7-month-olds had no difficulty learning auditory-visual pairings regardless of whether or not events were temporally synchronous, and they remembered these 10 min and 1 week later. In contrast, 3-month-olds showed poorer learning of sight-sound associations in the no-synchrony than synchrony conditions, and memory for sight-sound pairs 1 week later was shown only for the synchrony conditions. Results for Study 2 revealed generalization of learning of bimodal pairings under all stimulus conditions after a 1-week interval at 7 months of age. Implications of these findings for development of intersensory knowledge are discussed.
Morrongiello
Barbara A
BA
Psychology Department, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ont., Canada N1G 2W1. bmorrong@uoguelph.ca
Lasenby
Jennifer
J
Lee
Naomi
N
D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011897:Random Allocation