TY - JOUR
T1 - Developmental changes in visual short-term memory in infancy
T2 - Evidence from eye-tracking
AU - Oakes, Lisa M.
AU - Baumgartner, Heidi A.
AU - Barrett, Frederick S.
AU - Messenger, Ian M.
AU - Luck, Steven J.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - We assessed visual short-term memory (VSTM) for color in 6- and 8-month-old infants (n = 76) using a one-shot change detection task. In this task, a sample array of two colored squares was visible for 517 ms, followed by a 317-ms retention period and then a 3000-ms test array consisting of one unchanged item and one item in a new color. We tracked gaze at 60 Hz while infants looked at the changed and unchanged items during test. When the two sample items were different colors (Experiment 1), 8-month-old infants exhibited a preference for the changed item, indicating memory for the colors, but 6-month-olds exhibited no evidence of memory. When the two sample items were the same color and did not need to be encoded as separate objects (Experiment 2), 6-month-old infants demonstrated memory. These results show that infants can encode information in VSTM in a single, brief exposure that simulates the timing of a single fixation period in natural scene viewing, and they reveal rapid developmental changes between 6 and 8 months in the ability to store individuated items in VSTM.
AB - We assessed visual short-term memory (VSTM) for color in 6- and 8-month-old infants (n = 76) using a one-shot change detection task. In this task, a sample array of two colored squares was visible for 517 ms, followed by a 317-ms retention period and then a 3000-ms test array consisting of one unchanged item and one item in a new color. We tracked gaze at 60 Hz while infants looked at the changed and unchanged items during test. When the two sample items were different colors (Experiment 1), 8-month-old infants exhibited a preference for the changed item, indicating memory for the colors, but 6-month-olds exhibited no evidence of memory. When the two sample items were the same color and did not need to be encoded as separate objects (Experiment 2), 6-month-old infants demonstrated memory. These results show that infants can encode information in VSTM in a single, brief exposure that simulates the timing of a single fixation period in natural scene viewing, and they reveal rapid developmental changes between 6 and 8 months in the ability to store individuated items in VSTM.
KW - Eye-tracking
KW - Infancy
KW - Visual short-term memory
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U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00697
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00697
M3 - Article
C2 - 24106485
AN - SCOPUS:84885406485
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 4
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
IS - OCT
M1 - Article 697
ER -