Three-year-olds' memory for a person met only once at the age of 12 months: Very long-term memory revealed by a late-manifesting novelty preference

• Published in: Consciousness and cognition Vol. 24; pp. 49 - 56
• Main Authors: KINGO, Osman Skjold, STAUGAARD, Søren Risløv, KROJGAARD, Peter
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier 01.02.2014
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child Development - physiology; Child, Preschool; Developmental psychology; Eye Movement Measurements; Eye Movements - physiology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Learning. Memory; Male; Memory; Memory, Long-Term - physiology; Newborn. Infant; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Recognition (Psychology) - physiology; Time Factors; Human; Preschool age; Early childhood; Infantile amnésia; Infancy; Paired comparison; Memory; Eye-tracking; Visual paired comparison; Long-term memory; Infant; Cognition; Novelty stimulus; Eye movement; Language; Vision; Perception; Cognitive development; Stimulus preference; Child; Childhood amnesia; Recognition; Verbal recognition
• ISSN: 1053-8100; 1090-2376
• DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2013.12.011

This study examined three-year-olds' verbal and non-verbal memory for a person met only once after a 28 month interval. Children in the Test group (N=50) had participated in an earlier experiment at our lab at the age of 12 months where they met one of two possible experimenters. At this past event half of the children were tested by one, the other half by the other experimenter. At the follow-up, run by a naïve experimenter, the children were shown two videos from the original experiment in a visual paired comparison task: One with the specific experimenter testing them at the original visit (the Target) and one of the other experimenter (the Foil), with whom they had no experience. When explicitly asked, the children's responses did not differ from chance. However, eye-tracking data revealed a late-manifesting novelty preference for the "Foil" person indicating memory for the "Target" person met once before.