Mobile Game (infants 3 and 6 months of age)
In the mobile game, infants learn to move a
mobile by foot-kicking during two consecutive play sessions. Later, we
can ask a variety of questions about what infants remember, how long they
remember, and how they can be reminded of the mobile game after they forget it.
Since kicking is a response that babies do anyway, this is a game that most
babies pick up quite easily and really enjoy.
What we know so far:
Research using
the mobile game has been underway for nearly 30 years, so we know quite a bit
about the memory of 3- and 6-month-old infants; however, there is always more
to find out! Before we started this research, the general consensus was
that infants have very poor memories. From our research, we now know that
infants have very good memories, although their memories don’t last quite as
long as the memory of an older child or an adult. We know that after
learning the mobile game, a 3-month-old typically remembers the mobile for
about 5 days, while a 6-month-old remembers it for about 2 weeks. We also
know that both 3- and 6-month-old infants can be reminded of the mobile game
after they have forgotten it by briefly exposing them to the mobile moving
again. In fact, we’ve enabled 2-month-old infants to remember their
training mobile until they were 7-1/2 months of age by giving them periodic
reminders!
Current research with the mobile game
We are presently interested in determining
the situations in which infants can be taught that a mobile will work, and when
it won't work. In one study, we use brightly colored, patterned crib
liners to teach babies that they can kick to move a mobile in one context, but
not in a different one. In a different study, we ask infants to
"extinguish," or stop responding to a mobile that they had previously
learned to move. By studying the way babies learn not to respond, we can
better understand if there is a primacy effect for extinction, such that
infants will respond when tested as they had for the extinction training, or if
the original memory in which babies learn that the mobile does work is more
prominent.
Sampling of current publications
Train Game (infants 6 to 18 months of
age)
In the train game, infants sit on a caregiver’s
lap in front of a miniature train set (in a 2’ by 2’ wooden box). The
train set has a lever in the front that the infant can press to make the train
move around the circular track. The infant has to keep pressing the lever
in order to keep the train moving. The curious nature of infants leads
them to touch the lever, and then, they quickly discover how this game works.
As with the mobile game, we can use the train game to see how older infants’
memory develops.
What we know so far:
From teaching
infants the train game, we know that the duration of infants’ memory gradually
increases from 2 weeks at 6 months of age to 13 weeks (or just over 3 months!)
at 18 months of age. Like the mobile game, infants at all ages can be
reminded of the train game after they have finally forgotten it by merely
showing them the train moving around the track for a couple of minutes. Additionally, we have found that older
need
Current research with the train game
Research with the train game has not been
going on for as long as research with the mobile game, so there are lots of
questions about older infants’ memories that remain unanswered.
Currently, we are investigating how long a reminder has to be in order for
older infants to remember again, and how long it will take them to forget again
after reminding.
Sampling of current
publications
Hand-Puppet Imitation Task (infants 6
to 18 months of age)
In the puppet imitation task, the infant
watches as the experimenter demonstrates a series of engaging actions on the
colorful puppet. The experimenter simply removes a mitten from the puppet’s
hand, shakes it to jingle a hidden bell, and then replaces the mitten.
After several demonstrations, we can tell how long infants remember this simple
task by showing them the puppet again at a later time and seeing whether they
can still remove the mitten, and so forth, as the experimenter had
demonstrated.
What we know so far:
The length of
time that infants remember the puppet task gradually increases with age.
Six-month-old infants remember this simple task for only 1 day, while
12-month-olds remember it for 1 week, and 18-month-olds remember it for 1
month. We’ve found that if 6-month-old infants learn the puppet game
immediately after learning the train game (while the train is still present),
then the memory of the puppet game lasts as long as their memory of the train
game (2 weeks).
Current research with the Puppet Imitation Game
In our most recent research with the puppet
game, we are trying to use reminders of the puppet to extend the puppet memory.
We’ve found that a brief reminder of the puppet after infants have forgotten
the puppet task can recover and greatly prolong the memory. Additionally,
we are exploring whether infants will remember the puppet task if we change
things slightly, such as the room where the baby originally saw the actions
demonstrated or the color of the mat the experimenter knelt on during the
demonstration. Typically young infants have trouble remembering the
mobile or train if different parts of the task or the setting are changed, but
we have not explored this possibility for the puppet task.
Sampling of current publications