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Rovee Collier1999 Memory
Rovee Collier1999 Memory
a b
Fig. 2. A 3-month-old during training in the mobile task and during a retention test. During training (a), the infant’s kicks move
the mobile by means of the ankle ribbon that is connected to the mobile hook. During baseline and all retention tests (b), the ankle
ribbon and the mobile are connected to different hooks so that kicks cannot move the mobile.
DEVELOPMENT OF
MULTIPLE MEMORY
SYSTEMS
Fig. 4. Maximum duration of retention over the first 18 months of life. Filled circles
show retention on the mobile task, and open circles show retention on the train task;
6-month-olds were trained and tested in both tasks. The notion that memory pro-
cessing is mediated by two func-
tionally different and independent
that facilitates retrieval of the latent months of age, infants responded memory systems originated more
memory by increasing its accessi- instantaneously to the prime (see than a quarter-century ago with
bility. In a recent series of studies, Fig. 5). clinical observations that amnesics
Hildreth and I primed memories This result reveals that the are impaired relative to normal
that infants had forgotten (i.e., their speed of memory processing in- adults on recognition but not on
performance on the long-term re- creases over the 1st year of life. priming tests. Amnesics, for exam-
tention test was at baseline) and Even at 3 months of age, however, ple, performed poorly when asked
then assessed how long it took for infants respond instantaneously if to recognize which of four words
the memories to be recovered (i.e., a prime is presented if the memo- was on a list they had studied just
for infants to exhibit significant re- ry was recently acquired. Infants minutes earlier, but they performed
tention on the ensuing test; who were trained with a three- as well as normal adults when
Hildreth & Rovee-Collier, 1999). mobile serial list, for example, rec- given a word fragment (the prime)
Infants from 3 to 12 months of age ognized only the first mobile on and asked to complete it with the
were trained in the mobile or train the list 24 hr later—a classic pri- first word that came to mind.
task and were primed—only macy effect. If primed with the Typically, they completed the word
briefly and only once—with the first mobile immediately before fragments with words from the
original mobile or train 1 week the 24-hr test, however, they also previous study list, even though
after they no longer recognized it. recognized the second mobile; and they could not recognize them.
Even though the time it took in- if successively primed with the This dissociation suggested that
fants to forget the training event in- first two mobiles on the study list, recognition and priming tests tap
creased linearly with age (see Fig. they recognized the third mobile different underlying memory sys-
4), the latency of priming decreased (Gulya, Rovee-Collier, Galluccio, tems—one that is impaired in am-
over this same period until, at 12 & Wilk, 1998). nesia (explicit or declarative mem-
ory) and one that is not (implicit or that periodic nonverbal reminders In the second study (Hartshorn,
nondeclarative memory). Since can maintain the memory of an 1998), 6-month-olds learned the
then, more than a dozen independ- event from early infancy (2 and 6 train task, were briefly reminded at
ent variables have been found to months of age) through 1 1/2 to 2 7, 8, 9, and 12 months of age, and
differentially affect adults’ memory years of age—-the entire span of were tested at 18 months of age.
performance on recognition and the developmental period thought Although 6-month-olds typically
priming tests, and memory dissoci- to be characterized by infantile forget after 2 weeks, after being pe-
ations have become a diagnostic for amnesia. In the first study (Rovee- riodically reminded, they still ex-
the existence of two memory Collier, Hartshorn, & DiRubbo, in hibited significant retention 1 year
systems. press), 8-week-olds learned the later, at 18 months of age. In addi-
For years, these memory sys- mobile task. Every 3 weeks there- tion, 5 of 6 infants who were re-
tems were thought to develop hier- after until infants were 26 weeks minded immediately after the 18-
archically, with infants possessing of age, they received a preliminary month test still remembered when
only the primitive, perceptual- retention test followed by a 3-min retested at 24 months of age, 1 1/2
priming system until late in their visual reminder—either a reacti- years after the original event. These
1st year. This assumption was vation (priming) treatment in infants had encountered only one
based on the Jacksonian “first in, which they merely observed a mo- reminder (at 18 months) in the pre-
last out” principle of the develop- bile moving (a nonmoving mobile ceding year!
ment and dissolution of function is not an effective reminder) or a Unfortunately, the mobile task is
(i.e., the function that appears earli- reinstatement treatment in which inappropriate for infants older than
est in development disappears last they moved it themselves by kick- 6 months, and the train task is in-
when the organism is undergoing ing. Their final retention test oc- appropriate for infants younger
demise), but empirical support for than 6 months. However, because
curred at 29 weeks of age, when
it in the domain of memory came periodic nonverbal reminders
the experiment had to be termi-
only from studies of aging am- maintained memories of these two
nated because the infants outgrew
nesics (McKee & Squire, 1993)—not comparable events over an over-
the task. Although 8-week-olds
infants. Now, new evidence has lapping period between 2 months
forget after 1 to 2 days (see Fig. 4),
shown that all of the same inde- and 2 years of age, it seems highly
after exposure to periodic re-
pendent variables that produce dis- likely that periodic nonverbal re-
minders, they still exhibited sig-
sociations on recognition and prim- minders could also maintain the
nificant retention 4 1/2 months
ing tests with adults produce memory of a single event from 2
dissociations on recognition and later, and most still remembered 5
months through 2 years of age, if
priming tests with infants as well 1/4 months later. Control infants
not longer.
(Rovee-Collier, 1997). For example, who were not trained originally
priming produces the same degree but saw the same reminders as
of retention after all training-test their experimental counterparts WHENCEFORTH INFANTILE
delays, but the degree of retention exhibited no retention after any AMNESIA?
on recognition tests decreases as delay.
the training-test delay becomes The impact of periodic re-
minders is illustrated in Figure 6, The preceding evidence raises
longer for both adults (Tulving,
which shows the retention data of serious doubts about the generality
Schacter, & Stark, 1982) and infants.
individual 8-week-olds superim- of infantile amnesia, as well as the
This evidence demonstrates that
posed on the retention function accounts that have been put forth
the Jacksonian principle does not
apply to the development of mem- from Figure 4. When the experi- to explain it. Clearly, neither the
ory systems; rather, both systems ment ended, four 8-week-olds had immaturity of their brain nor their
are present and functional from remembered as long as expected of inability to talk limits how long
early infancy. 2 1/4-year-olds, one had remem- young infants can remember an
bered as long as expected of 2-year- event. As long as they periodically
olds, and the infant with the “poor- encounter appropriate nonverbal
est” memory had remembered for reminders, their memory of an
MAINTAINING MEMORIES
as long as children almost 1 1/2 event can be maintained—perhaps
WITH REMINDERS
years old. Had we been able to con- forever. Because a match between
tinue the study, some infants un- the encoding and retrieval contexts
Two recent studies from our doubtedly would have remem- is critical for retrieval after very
laboratory have demonstrated bered even longer. long delays, however, a shift from
Note
1. Address correspondence to
Carolyn Rovee-Collier, Department of
Psychology, Rutgers University, 152
Frelinghuysen Rd., Piscataway, NJ
08854-8020; e-mail: rovee@rci.rutgers.
edu.
References