Rate of Habituation and Visual Memory in Infants

Author(s): Judy S. DeLoache

Source: Child Development, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Mar., 1976), pp. 145-154
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1128293 .
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Rate of Habituationand Visual Memory
in Infants

Judy S. DeLoache
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

DELOACHE, JUDY S. Rateof Habituationand VisualMemoryin Infants.CHLD DEVELOPMENT,

1976, 47, 145-154. This study investigated 17-week-old infants' response to discrepancy as a
function of rate of habituation. 36 subjects were repeatedly shown a pattern containing 4
geometric shapes until they reached a proportional criterion of habituation: each infant's fix-
ation time had to decrease by at least 50%. On the basis of 2 nonoverlapping distributions of
trials to criterion, fast and slow habituators were identified. Recovery of fixation time was
found for both fast and slow habituators when a discrepant stimulus was presented following
habituation. These data were interpreted as reflecting developmental differences in encoding.
After several interpolated trials with the new pattern, the infants' response to the original
habituation stimulus increased, suggesting that the interpolated trials had interfered with their
memory for the habituation stimulus.

The habituation paradigm has provided Gurk 1972), condition at birth, later IQ (Lewis
invaluable access to the phenomena of infant 1967), discrimination learning (Gelber 1972b),
perception and memory (Jeffrey & Cohen and complexity preference (Greenberg, O'Don-
1971). In visual attention studies infants are nell, & Crawford 1973).
repeatedly shown the same pattern, and typi-
cally their fixation time decreases over trials. Lewis (1967) and McCall (1971) have
This decline in attention (habituation) is gen-
speculated that fast habituators might be su-
erally thought to reflect the acquisition of an perior or more efficient information processors.
internal representation or memory model of the This view is based in part on several experi-
stimulus (Cohen 1973; Lewis 1967; McCall ments (McCall & Kagan 1970; McCall & Mel-
1971; Sokolov 1963). Presumably, the subject son 1969; Melson & McCall 1970) in which
compares each incoming stimulus to his mem- fast habituators recovered (i.e., increased their
ory model of past stimuli. When the two match, fixation time) when a discrepant stimulus was
attention is inhibited; if the present stimulus
is discrepant from the model, the subject re- presented, while slow habituators tended not
to respond differentially. These data have been
sponds positively to it (recovery).
interpreted as evidence that the slow habitu-
ators had poorer or less complete memory
The primary focus of this experiment con-
models; they did not discriminate between the
cerned individual differences in rate of habitua- familiar and novel stimuli because their mem-
tion. In any visual habituation study, some
ory model of the familiar one was inadequate.
subjects habituate very quickly while others
continue to look at the stimulus throughout the In these studies, each subject experienced
session. Rate of habituation has been shown to a fixed number of familiarization trials. Since
correlate positively with age (Lewis 1967; Mc- by definition the slow habituators did not
This study is based on a dissertation submitted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the doctoral degree. This research
was supported in part by grant HD-03858 from the National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development to Leslie B. Cohen. The author wishes to express appreciation to Dr.
Cohen for his helpful guidance and support, to Gerald L. Clore for his suggestions and criti-
cisms of the manuscript, and to Margaret Wetherford Rissman for preparation of the figures
and other assistance. The author is also at Illinois State Pediatric Institute, Chicago. Requests
for reprints should be addressed to the author at Children's Research Center, University of
Illinois, Champaign, Illinois 61820.
[Child Development, 1976, 47, 145-154. @ 1976 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
All rights reserved.]

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146 Child Development
habituate during those trials, the question re-
mains whether they would eventually habituate
if given more experience with the standard. In
other words, are slow habituators incapable of
storing stimulus information, or are they simply
slower to do so? If they do eventually process
and store the information, do they form as
accurate and complete a model as fast habitu-
ators?
The present study was designed to answer
these questions. To do so, it was essential that
all infants be allowed ample opportunity to
habituate. Therefore, instead of giving the sub-
jects a fixed number of trials, a proportional
criterion of habituation was used. Each infant
was presented with a pattern repeatedly until
his or her fixation time decreased by one-half
or more of its original level. Thus, the infants
could take any number of trials to reach cri-
terion, but they were equated for relative
amount of habituation. Each subject was then
shown a stimulus that differed to some extent
from the standard. This procedure permitted
a comparison of fast and slow habituators' re-
sponse to discrepancy after both had habitu-
ated to the standard.
An infant's response to discrepant stimuli
is generally considered a test of memory for
the standard. Therefore, if slow habituators are
able eventually to process and store an ade-
quate model of the stimulus, they should show
as much recovery as fast habituators. On the
other hand, if fast habituators have basically
superior memorial processes, they could still be
expected to respond more positively to the
novel stimuli.
McCall, Hogarty, Hamilton, and Vincent
(1973) also investigated this problem. They
exposed 12- and 18-week-old infants to a sim-
ple standard stimulus until their fixation time
met an absolute criterion; an infant was con-
sidered to have habituated when he fixated the
pattern for 3 sec or less on two consecutive
trials (following the first five stimulus presenta-
tions). Both fast and slow habituators re-
sponded positively to subsequent discrepant
stimuli, and the slow habituators actually
looked longer than the fast habituators.
However, the fact that an absolute cri-
terion of habituation was used makes inter-
pretation of these results difficult. The criterion
required that an infant fixate the stimulus for
3 sec or less. Consequently, infants with ini-
tially low fixation times could be classified as
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having habituated, or even as being fast habit-
uators, without ever decreasing their looking
time. Probably because the standard stimulus
was extremely simple (an arrow in either a
horizontal or vertical orientation), many sub-
jects appear to have been at or near the 3-sec
criterion even at the start of the experiment.
In fact, only 17 of the 120 subjects in the ex-
periment looked longer on their first than on
their last familiarization trial. Thus, the dif-
ferentiation of fast and slow habituators was
somewhat problematical.
The proportional criterion used in the
present study avoids such difficulties. No infant
could be judged to have habituated without
actually decreasing his response from its orig-
inal level. Furthermore, the relative amount of
decrement shown by all subjects was equiva-
lent. Various criteria of habituation are dis-
cussed in more detail in Cohen and Gelber
(1975) and DeLoache (1973).
This experiment also investigated transfer
of habituation. After reaching the criterion
specified above, the subjects received a second
habituation series with a pattern that contained
half the elements in the original standard
(medium discrepancy) or a pattern made up
of all new elements (high discrepancy). It was
expected that habituation would occur more
rapidly to the moderately discrepant stimulus,
since the subject had already habituated to
part of it.
Delayed recognition was also tested by
re-presenting the original standard following
the second habituation series. If a subject were
still habituated to the stimulus (i.e., if he re-
membered it), his response to it should remain
low. If, however, the intervening stimulation
or time interval had interfered with his mem-
ory trace, then his fixation time should recover
upon presentation of the original standard.
Method
Subjects.-The subjects in the final sample
were 36 infants, 18 male and 18 female, whose
average age was 16 weeks, 6 days (range =
15 weeks, 3 days to 17 weeks, 6 days). Their
names were obtained from local newspaper
birth announcements. The parents were invited
by mail and telephone to participate in the
study and were paid $2.00 for their coopera-
tion. Only full-term infants with no history of
eye disorders were included.

An additional 35 infants were tested but
were excluded from the study for crying (27)
and failureto turn to the blinkinglight between
trials (six). One subject was eliminated be-
cause he had such low initial fixation times
that it was impossible for him to reach the
one-half criterion.Another subject whose look-
ing time for the firstthree trials was more than
18 standarddeviations longer than that of the
other infants was excluded.
Apparatus.-The mother sat with her in-
fant on her lap facing a 4-ft-high semicircular
screen painted silver gray. The screen was
mounted on 14-inch metal pipe legs. A blinking
light was used to attract the subject'sattention
at the start of each trial. The light was a Dialco
28-v bulb with translucentwhite cover % inch
in diameter which was mounted on the right
side of the screen, 24 inches from the right side
and 15 inches from the bottom of the screen.
When turned on, the light blinked at a rate of
0.3 sec on and 0.3 sec off.
Visual patternswere provided by a carou-
sel slide projectorlocated in an adjacentcontrol
room behind the infant. A shutter in front of
the lens blocked the image until a pattern was
to be projected. Then the shutter opened, and
the slide was projectedthrough a window onto
a mirrorin the experimentalroom. The mirror
reflected the image onto the left side of the
screen. (Reflecting the stimulus off the mirror
was necessary since the mother was sitting be-
tween the projectorand the screen.) The size
of the projected image was 11 x 14 inches.
The bottom edge of the pattern was located
14 inches up from the bottom edge of the
screen, and the right edge was 20 inches to
the left of the light.
A portable television camera on a tripod
behind the screen recorded the infant's head
and eye movements through a 2-inch hole in
the center of the screen 12 inches from the
bottom edge. An observerwatched the subject's
head and eyes on a TV monitorin the control
room. She held one switch in each hand.
When she judged the infant to be looking at
the light she pressed one button; when she
judged the infant to be fixating the stimulus,
she pressed the other button. The switches
were connected to the programmingequipment
and to an Esterline-Angusevent recorder, all
located in the control room. Previous studies
have demonstratedthe reliability of recording
fixations from the monitor with r's of .89 and
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Judy S. DeLoache 147
.92 (Cohen, Gelber, & Lazar 1971; Pancratz
& Cohen 1970).
Procedure.-The experimenterbriefly ex-
plained the nature of the study, and the mother
(or father) was told she (he) could terminate
the experiment at any time. Then the mother
was seated with the infant sitting on her lap
facing the semicircular screen. The infant's
head was approximately24 inches away from
the screen. The experimenter informed the
mother that it was essential that she not influ-
ence her baby in any way during the presenta-
tion of stimuli. To insure that the mother
would not unintentionally affect her infant's
behavior, she was instructed to keep her eyes
closed throughoutthe session so she could not
see the stimuli at the same time as the infant.
At the termination of the session, the mother
was shown the blinking light and the patterns
her infant had seen.
Each trial began with the light on the
subject'sright blinking on and off. The purpose
of the light was to controlwhere the infant was
looking when the pattern was turned on (see
Cohen 1973). As soon as the infant fixated the
light, the observer pressed a switch which
turned off the light and presented the stimulus
on the opposite side of the panel. When the
infant began looking at the pattern, the ob-
server pressed another switch which she re-
leased when the infant turned away. Releasing
the fixation-timeswitch turned off the slide and
turned on the blinking light to begin the next
trial.
Table 1 shows the design of the experi-
ment. On the first two trials every subject was
shown an 8 X 8 black-and-whitecheckerboard
pattern as a warm-up stimulus to control for
startle effects. Then for the first series of ha-
bituation trials (Habituation I) each subject
was shown one of two standard stimuli (A or
B). StandardA was a pattern made up of four
geometric shapes each of a different color on
a black background (see fig. 1). Standard B
contained four different shapes of different
colors.
The standard stimulus was repeatedly
presented until the subject's fixation time
reached the proportionalcriterion level (one-
half). A special apparatuscomputed the total
fixation time for the first three habituation
trials and comparedit to the sum of every three
subsequent consecutive trials (including trials
2, 3, and 4). If the new total was greater than
148 Child Development
TABLE 1
EXPERIMENTALDESIGN

HabituationII
(to Criterion
or 8 Trials);
Recoveryto Delayed
Warm-up HabituationI Discrepancy Recognition Recovery
DiscrepancyLevela (2 Trials) (to Criterion) (1st 2 Trials) (2 Trials) (2 Trials)
High ................... 8X8 A B A 8X 8
8X8 B A B 8X8
Medium ................ 8X 8 A C A 8X 8
8X8 B C B 8X8
Zero ................... 8X 8 A A B 8X 8
8X8 B B A 8X8
a Half the males and half the females in each discrepancy condition experienced standard A, half B.

one-half of the first three trials, the slide pro-
jector did not advance and the same slide was
shown again on the next trial. When the sum
of any three consecutive trials was equal to
or less than one-half the original total, then
the criterion computer caused the slide pro-
jector to advance.
On the next trial a stimulus was shown
which was of either high, medium, or zero
discrepancy relative to the previous standard.
In the high-discrepancy condition all the colors
and shapes in the standard pattern were
changed (subjects who had previously seen
standard A were presented with B, and vice
versa). Subjects in the medium-discrepancy
condition received a partially changed stimulus,
C. This pattern contained two of the colored
shapes from standard A and two from standard
B. Thus, it was equally discrepant from both
standard stimuli. The zero-discrepancy group
continued to receive the same pattern they
had seen previously.
These trials began the second habituation
series (Habituation II). With the first presenta-
tion of the novel stimulus, the criterion com-
puter reset and started figuring a new criterion
based on the subject's fixation time for the first
three trials with the new pattern. (For the
zero-discrepancy group, the criterion computer
reset following the achievement of criterion
even though the infants continued to see the
same pattern.) The stimulus was presented
repeatedly until the subject either reached the
new one-half criterion of habituation or had
experienced eight trials with the new pattern.
Following the end of the second habitua-
1 As shown in table 1, the zero-change group was shown a high-discrepancy stimulus on
the two trials following Habituation II to test for recovery. The infants' fixation time signifi-
cantly increased on these trials.
tion series, the subjects in the high- and
medium-discrepancy conditions were given two
trials with their original standard (the stimu-
lus to which the subject had originally been
habituated).' The purpose of re-presenting the
original standard was to test for delayed recog-
nition.
Finally, all subjects received two trials
with an 8 X 8 black-and-white checkerboard
to test for recovery to a relatively novel stimu-
lus. This control was necessary to insure that
the infants were still generally attentive at the
end of the session (Jeffrey & Cohen 1971).
Results
As shown in figure 2, the 36 subjects were
divided into fast and slow habituators on the
basis of number of trials to reach criterion in
Habituation I. There appeared to be two
distinct populations of subjects-19 infants
reached the one-half criterion in eight or fewer
trials, and 17 subjects took 11 trials or longer.
The mean number of trials to criterion was
10.1.
The fixation-time data were transformed
into base-10 logarithms prior to analysis. Un-
weighted-means analyses of variance (Winer
1962) were performed with the factors of sex
(male, female), discrepancy level (high, me-
dium, zero), and rate of habituation (fast,
slow). Initial analyses showed no significant
effects for the standard stimuli (A vs. B), and
they were combined in subsequent analyses.
Habituation I.-To determine if any ini-
tial differences in fixation time existed among

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 Judy S. DeLoache 149

Ui

mu
Fwo.1.-Experimentalstimuli.StimulusC was composedof two of the shapesfromstandardA and
two fromstandardB.

the three discrepancy levels, looking times
during the first series of habituationtrials were
analyzed. No significanteffects were found in
an analysis of log mean fixation times for Ha-
bituation I or in an analysis of only the first
threehabituationtrials (the trialswhich formed
the reference on which each subject'shabitua-
tion criterion was based). In both analyses,
the only factor to approach significance was
sex (p = .07), with males tending to have
longer fixationtimes than females. An analysis
of the number of trials to criterion (with the
factors of sex, discrepancylevel, and standard
stimulus) also showed no significant effects.
Thus, these data indicate that the subjects did
not differ significantly (other than in the num-
ber of trials to reach criterion) prior to the test
for recovery of fixationtime.
Recovery to discrepancy.--A repeated-

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150 Child Development
10
Z9
u
0 5
6
0 5
z 2 "
2 4 6 8
FIG. 2.-Distribution of trials to criterion.Infantsreachingcriterion eight
designatedas fast habituators,and those reachingcriterionin 11 or more trials were designatedslow
habituators.
habituators.
measures analysis of variance compared each
subject's fixation time on the last two trials of
Habituation I and the two recovery trials. As
shown in figure 3, the infants' fixationtime in-
creased to the discrepant stimuli, F(1,24) =
38.75, p < .001. The predicted interaction of
discrepancy level x trials was significant,
F (2,24) = 5.97, p < .01. Inspection of the
means revealed that both the high- and
medium-discrepancygroups recovered, while
the zero-change group did not. Obviously, the
prediction that the high-change group would
show greater recovery than the medium group
was not supported.
The zero-changeconditionprovided a con-
trol for regressionto the mean following Habit-
uation I, which could be expected to occur to
the extent that subjects happened to reach
criterionthroughchance fluctuationsin fixation
time. A t test confirmed that these subjects
did not increase significantly after attaining
criterion.
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10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
in
or fewer trialswere
To determine if fast and slow habituators
differedin amountof recoveryto the discrepant
stimuli, a repeated-measuresanalysis of vari-
ance compared the last two trials of Habitu-
ation I with the two recovery trials for only
the high- and medium-discrepancyconditions.
=
Significant recovery occurred, F (1,16)
51.60, p < .001, and there was no difference
in the amount of recovery shown by fast and
slow habituators (the F value for the rate x
trialsinteractionwas less than one). Thus, after
habituating to the same level as fast habitu-
ators, slow habituatorsresponded just as posi-
tively to the presentation of a new stimulus.
Habituation II.-It was predicted that
transfer from Habituation I would cause sub-
jects in the medium-changeconditionto habitu-
ate more rapidly during Habituation II than
subjects in the high-discrepancycondition. The
predicted differencein numberof trialsto reach
criterionin Habituation II for the high (M =
7.33) and medium (M = 6.92) discrepancy
 Judy S. DeLoache 151

.5

W MEDIUM
.4 HIGH
O

S .3 ZERO

O
.1

HABITUATION I RECOVERY
FIG. 3.-Recovery to three levels of discrepancy

subjects was not significant. However, the re-
stricted number of trials allowed may have
been responsible, since few subjects reached
criterion within the maximum eight trials.
Even though not many infants reached the
50% criterion in Habituation II, an analysis
comparing the log fixation times for the first
two and the last two trials of Habituation II
revealed a significant trials effect, F(1,24) =
13.65, p < .01. The infants' fixation time de-
creased from the beginning to the end of Ha-
bituation II. The predicted difference between
amount of habituation for the high- and me-
dium-discrepancy conditions was not found. A
significant effect was found for sex, F (1,24) =
8.55, p < .01, with boys looking at the stimuli
twice as long as girls.
The zero-change group showed no change
in fixation time from the beginning to the end
of Habituation II. Their looking time on the
last two trials was 98% as high as on the first
two trials.
Delayed recognition.-Following Habitu-
ation II, the subjects in the high- and medium-
discrepancy groups were given two trials with
their original standard stimulus from Habitua-
tion I. A repeated-measures analysis of vari-
ance showed that the infants looked at the pat-
tern longer on the recognition test than they
had on the last two trials of Habituation I,
F(1,16) = 12.09, p < .01. The high-discrep-
ancy subjects increased slightly but not sig-
nificantly more than the medium-discrepancy
subjects did. Apparently, the habituation stim-
ulus was not recognized on the delayed test;
the response to it had recovered during the
several intervening trials.
Checkerboard trials.-Fixation times on

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152 Child Development
the checkerboard trials at the beginning and
end of the session were compared to make cer-
tain that the infants were still attentive at the
conclusion of the session. This procedure is
necessary to rule out the possibility that the ob-
served decrement in fixation time was caused by
peripheral factors such as fatigue (Jeffrey &
Cohen 1971). A significant trials effect,
F(1,24) = 4.58, p < .05, showed that the
infants actually looked longer at the checker-
boards at the end of the session than they had
at the beginning. This finding clearly rules
out fatigue or adaptation as important factors
in the present study. There was also a signifi-
cant but uninterpretable four-way interaction
of sex x discrepancy level x rate of habitua-
tion x trials, F (2,24) = 3.67, p < .05.
Discussion
One of the most striking findings of the
present study was the distinctly bimodal dis-
tribution of number of trials to reach the cri-
terion of habituation (fig. 2). One group of
infants (labeled fast habituators) took eight
or fewer trials to habituate, while a separate
group (slow habituators) required 11 or more
trials to reach criterion. Thus, rate of habitua-
tion appears to identify two quite different
populations of infants, and the data reported
here provide some indication of the source of
the difference.
Slow habituators were not incapable of
performing the various aspects of habituation
(information processing and storage, retrieval,
and comparison). Given repeated exposure to
the pattern, they eventually habituated to it
and subsequently recovered to a novel stimulus.
Furthermore, there was no difference in the
degree of recovery for fast and slow habitu-
ators. It appears that these two groups of
infants differed in how many exposures it took
for them to form an accurate model of the
stimulus. However, once that model was
formed well enough to inhibit further looking
at the pattern, they were equally capable of
discriminating a new stimulus from the old one.
Thus, fast and slow habituators probably
do not differ very much in the adequacy of
their memory model of the stimulus, or in their
ability to retrieve the model or to compare new
stimuli to it. The source of variation in rate of
habituation seems rather to be in the functions
of analyzing or encoding stimulus information.
A difference may exist in how quickly fast and
slow habituators begin to process the informa-
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tion in what they see. Or the infants may
initially be attending to different aspects of
the stimulus situation. Another alternative is
that slow habituators process and store some in-
formation on every trial, but a smaller amount
per trial than fast habituators. Further research
should attempt to determine which particular
aspects of encoding are performed differently
by these two groups of infants.
McCall et al. (1973) concluded that, for
infants, differences in developmental level ap-
pear more in encoding than in retrieval pro-
cesses. Thus, if rate of habituation reflects cog-
nitive development, as was suggested earlier,
one would expect the main difference between
fast and slow habituators to appear in the pro-
cess of forming a memory model of a stimulus.
After development of a model, differences
should be minimal. Since just these results were
obtained in the present investigation, the data
are consistent with the view that fast habitu-
ators are more advanced infants. One test of
this analysis would be to compare long-term
retention (instead of recovery to discrepancy)
in fast and slow habituators. They should be
equally capable of recognizing a pattern to
which they had previously been habituated.
The present finding of recovery to dis-
crepancy by slow as well as fast habituators is
consistent with the data of McCall et al.
(1973), who also used a criterion of habitu-
ation. In light of these experiments, it is not
surprising that several previously cited studies
which presented fixed numbers of trials (Mc-
Call & Kagan 1970; McCall & Melson 1969;
Melson & McCall 1970) did not find recovery
by slow habituators. Those infants simply had
not habituated by the end of the session. To
the extent that response habituation reflects the
formation of a memory model of the stimulus,
only after infants have habituated can they
reasonably be expected to discriminate and
respond to a novel stimulus.
It should be noted that the present results
also differ in some ways from those of McCall
et al. (1973), since they found differences in
degree of recovery for infants identified as fast
and slow habituators. However, this discrep-
ancy is probably due to the criteria employed
in the two studies.
The present investigation is the first to
employ a proportional criterion of habituation.
The principal advantage of this type of cri-
terion is that the investigator can equate the

relative amount of habituation shown by all
infants. In this study all subjects were required
to decrease their fixation time by the same
proportion (50%). Since the mean fixation
times of the fast and slow habituators did not
differ at the start or end of the habituation
trials, the groups were equated for all variables
except the relevant one of rate of habituation.
The criterion used by McCall et al. (1973)
specified an absolute level of fixation time to
be reached by all subjects. While this is an
improvement over the previous practice of
giving all subjects the same number of famil-
iarization trials, there are still several problems.
One of the most serious is that the procedure
allows short lookers to be classified as fast
habituators, even though their response may
not decrease at all. If the actual difference be-
tween infants classified as fast and slow habit-
uators is not the rate at which their response
to a repeated stimulus decreases, but rather
their general tendency to be relatively short or
long lookers, then the response to discrepancy
of the two groups may be confounded with the
differences in their overall fixation times. Since
the slow habituators in that study seem to be
longer lookers, the differences reported for re-
covery to discrepancy may not be due to rate
of habituation.
McCall et al. (1973) were not unaware of
this problem, for they reported that "to insure
that the results were not a function of differ-
ences in response style and 'initial values,' the
analyses were repeated using the response to
the standard immediately preceding the first
discrepancy as a covariate ..." (p. 285). How-
ever, as the authors pointed out, the response
to the last standard was one of the criterion
trials and therefore could only be 3 sec or less.
Hence, all subjects were by definition respond-
ing at a very similar level and little variance
was possible. The appropriate covariate would
have been initial fixation time or mean fixation
time for the noncriterion habituation trials.
A proportional criterion thus seems to be
preferable for studying individual differences
in rate of habituation. Another of its advantages
is that one can ensure that at the end of the
habituation trials the infants have reached an
asymptotically low response level (and that
model formation is complete). The 50% cri-
terion of habituation used in the present study
met this stipulation. After reaching the one-
half criterion in Habituation I, the zero-change
group's fixation time did not decline further
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Judy S. DeLoache 153
even though they continued to see the same
stimulus for eight more trials during Habitu-
ation II.
The same criterion might or might not be
appropriate for a different situation with differ-
ent stimuli, however. Whether a given propor-
tional criterion of habituation results in an
asymptotically low response could depend on
the initial level. For example, if a stimulus
elicits extremely long fixation times at the
beginning of an experiment, the infants could
reach a 50% criterion of habituation and still
be looking fairly long at the stimuli. Further
experience with the stimulus might produce
even more response decrement. Thus, pilot
testing of the experimental stimuli should be
done to select the appropriate criterion.
Another advantage of a proportional cri-
terion of habituation is that the criterion itself
can be manipulated experimentally. For ex-
ample, the response to novelty by infants who
had decreased their fixation time by only 25%
could be compared to that by subjects who had
reached a more stringent criterion. Such an
analysis could provide important information
about the early stages of information pro-
cessing and storage.
The present study also investigated de-
layed recognition, and it provides the first
direct evidence of interference in a habituation
paradigm. When the original (Habituation I)
standard stimulus was re-presented following
several trials with a different pattern, it elicited
significantly longer looking times that it had
at the end of Habituation I. The intervening
stimulation apparently had interfered with the
subjects' memory for the original pattern.
Other infant habituation studies have not
reported interference effects (Caron & Caron
1969; Gelber 1972a; Martin 1973), even
when several different stimuli have been inter-
polated. Cohen & Gelber (1975) suggest
that the intervening stimulation may have to
be processed and stored in memory before it
will disrupt an infant's recognition of a pre-
viously stored stimulus. For young infants,
several stimulus presentations are probably
necessary for a competing memory model to
be formed. In the present experiment only one
pattern was repeatedly exposed during the
interval between habituation and the recogni-
tion test. Such repetition should facilitate pro-
cessing and storing of the interpolated stimulus
and thus increase the likelihood of interference.
154 Child Development
In the one other study in which the interval was
filled with a single stimulus (Pancratz & Cohen
1970), infants subsequently failed to differen-
tiate between the familiar and a novel pattern,
suggesting that interference had occurred. It
appears, then, that infants will recognize a
pattern to which they were earlier habituated
unless a competing memory model is subse-
quently formed. For that to happen, the inter-
vening stimulus should be repeatedly pre-
sented, and it may also be essential that the
infant habituate to it.
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