ERIC Number: EJ970164
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Aug
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-0965
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Seven-Month-Old Infants Chunk Items in Memory
Moher, Mariko; Tuerk, Arin S.; Feigenson, Lisa
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, v112 n4 p361-377 Aug 2012
Although working memory has a highly constrained capacity limit of three or four items, both adults and toddlers can increase the total amount of stored information by "chunking" object representations in memory. To examine the developmental origins of chunking, we used a violation-of-expectation procedure to ask whether 7-month-old infants, whose working memory capacity is still maturing, also can chunk items in memory. In Experiment 1, we found that in the absence of chunking cues, infants failed to remember three identical hidden objects. In Experiments 2 and 3, we found that infants successfully remembered three hidden objects when provided with overlapping spatial and featural chunking cues. In Experiment 4, we found that infants did not chunk when provided with either spatial or featural chunking cues alone. Finally, in Experiment 5, we found that infants also failed to chunk when spatial and featural cues specified different chunks (i.e., were pitted against each other). Taken together, these results suggest that chunking is available before working memory capacity has matured but still may undergo important development over the first year of life. (Contains 2 figures.)
Descriptors: Object Permanence, Cues, Infants, Short Term Memory, Experimental Psychology, Child Psychology, Adults, Comparative Analysis, Infant Behavior, Cognitive Processes, Task Analysis, Child Development, Time Factors (Learning), Science Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A