Читать книгу Lifespan Development - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 265

Habituation studies measuring looking time and brain activity demonstrate that neonates can recall visual and auditory stimuli (Muenssinger et al., 2013; Streri, Hevia, Izard, & Coubart, 2013). With age, infants require fewer trials or presentations to recall a stimulus and are able to retain material for progressively longer periods of time (Howe, 2015). Infants can also remember motor activities. In one study, 2- to 3-month-old infants were taught to kick their foot, which was tied to a mobile with a ribbon, to make the mobile move (as shown in Figure 5.6). One week later, when the infants were reattached to the mobile, they kicked vigorously, indicating their memory of the first occasion. The infants would kick even 4 weeks later if the experimenter gave the mobile a shake to remind them of its movement (Rovee-Collier & Bhatt, 1993).

Although infants have basic memory capacities common to children and adults, they are most likely to remember events that take place in familiar contexts and in which they are actively engaged (Rose, Feldman, Jankowski, & Van Rossem, 2011). Emotional engagement also enhances infants’ memory. One method for testing the effect of emotional engagement on memory is the still-face interaction paradigm. In this experimental task, an infant interacts with an adult who first engages in normal social interaction and then suddenly lets his or her face become still and expressionless, not responsive to the infant’s actions (Tronick, Als, Adamson, Wise, & Brazelton, 1978). Infants usually respond to the adult’s still face with brief smiles followed by negative facial expressions, crying, looking away, thumb sucking, and other indications of emotional distress (Shapiro, Fagen, Prigot, Carroll, & Shalan, 1998; Weinberg & Tronick, 1994). In one study, 5-month-old infants who were exposed to the still face demonstrated recall over a year later, at 20 months of age, by looking less at the woman who had appeared in the earlier still-face paradigm than at two other women whom the infants had never previously seen (Bornstein, Arterberry, & Mash, 2004). In sum, memory improves over the course of infancy, but even young infants are likely to recall events that take place in familiar surroundings in which they are actively engaged and that are emotionally salient (Courage & Cowan, 2009; Learmonth et al., 2004).