Development of long-term event memory in preverbal infants: an eye-tracking study

Sci Rep. 2017 Mar 8:7:44086. doi: 10.1038/srep44086.

Abstract

The development of long-term event memory in preverbal infants remains elusive. To address this issue, we applied an eye-tracking method that successfully revealed in great apes that they have long-term memory of single events. Six-, 12-, 18- and 24-month-old infants watched a video story in which an aggressive ape-looking character came out from one of two identical doors. While viewing the same video again 24 hours later, 18- and 24-month-old infants anticipatorily looked at the door where the character would show up before it actually came out, but 6- and 12-month-old infants did not. Next, 12-, 18- and 24-month-old infants watched a different video story, in which a human grabbed one of two objects to hit back at the character. In their second viewing after a 24-hour delay, 18- and 24-month-old infants increased viewing time on the objects before the character grabbed one. In this viewing, 24-month-old infants preferentially looked at the object that the human had used, but 18-month-old infants did not show such preference. Our results show that infants at 18 months of age have developed long-term event memory, an ability to encode and retrieve a one-time event and this ability is elaborated thereafter.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Child Development*
  • Child, Preschool
  • Eye Movement Measurements
  • Eye Movements*
  • Female
  • Fixation, Ocular
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Male
  • Memory, Long-Term*
  • Psychology, Child