Conceptual knowledge increases infants' memory capacity.
Adults can expand their limited working memory capacity by using stored conceptual knowledge to chunk items into interrelated units. For example, adults are better at remembering the letter string PBSBBCCNN after parsing it into three smaller units: the television acronyms PBS, BBC, and CNN. Is this chunking a learned strategy acquired through instruction? We explored the origins of this ability by asking whether untrained infants can use conceptual knowledge to increase memory. In the absence of any grouping cues, 14-month-old infants can track only three hidden objects at once, demonstrating the standard limit of working memory. In four experiments we show that infants can surpass this limit when given perceptual, conceptual, linguistic, or spatial cues to parse larger arrays into smaller units that are more efficiently stored in memory. This work offers evidence of memory expansion based on conceptual knowledge in untrained, preverbal subjects. Our findings demonstrate that without instruction, and in the absence of robust language, a fundamental memory computation is available throughout the lifespan, years before the development of explicit metamemorial strategies.
Feigenson
Lisa
L
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. feigenson@jhu.edu
Halberda
Justin
J
D000367:Age Factors; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D019359:Knowledge; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011581:Psychological Tests; D014796:Visual Perception