The effects of lag and category membership on recognition memory in very young children

Abstract

Children 13-30 months of age were briefly shown common objects on familiarization trials that later reappeared paired with new objects on test trials. The new objects were similar in shape, shared a common basic-level label, or were perceptually and conceptually unrelated to the familiarized stimuli. In the first of two experiments, children even as young as 13 months of age displayed significant preferences for novel stimuli in all test conditions. Length of lag between familiarization and test trial was not found to influence attentional preference. A second experiment confirmed the findings of a significant novelty preference by 1-year-olds. In both experiments, older subjects displayed stronger preferences for novel over familiar stimuli when they were conceptually unrelated than when they were related. However, this greater preference was not consistently significant, as found in previous studies.