Repeated priming increases memory accessibility in infants.
In previous research on priming (reactivation) with 3-month-olds, two primes recovered a forgotten memory faster than one, suggesting that prior priming had increased the accessibility of the forgotten memory. Exploiting the fact that the minimum duration of a prime indexes the accessibility of the forgotten memory, we currently examined whether prior priming also reduces the minimum effective prime duration. In three experiments, 60 3-month-olds learned an operant task, forgot it, and then were exposed to successive primes either 1 day and 1 week after forgetting (Experiment 1) or 1 and 2 weeks after forgetting (Experiment 2). In both cases, prior priming reduced the minimum duration of the second prime, a result that was independent of the duration of the first prime (Experiment 3). These findings confirm that priming increases the accessibility of a latent memory and raise the possibility that repeated priming underlies the extended memorability of persons and events that infants encounter sporadically.
Bearce
Karen Hildreth
KH
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
Rovee-Collier
Carolyn
C
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D010507:Periodicity