6 Replies to “Psychology 3717 – Memory Development (lecturecast episode 100!)”

  1. First, a quick trip back in time–Congratulations on the century mark!

    Now for a question: We can tell babies remember a particular face because they stare at it longer, but we can tell babies remember toys they’ve seen before because they stare at it for less time? Did I miss something?

  2. Thnaks…

    WHat seems a paradox first off makes sense if you look at it this way. If they reactr differently to two stimuli they must have remembered one of them.

    Faces are also likely a special thing, there is most certainly a face recognition module, so I would not be surprised to find that they would say pay more attention to ones they have seen before.

  3. It certainly jibes with my experience. I’ve got a passel of nieces and nephews, and they all reacted strongly to faces when very young–I never knew, though, if they remembered me specifically, or just liked someone making faces at them. Even pretty young, they’d try to imitate facial expressions. (Which was soooo cuuuute! Especially since they weren’t waking ME up at two in the morning…)

    About toys, though–would they look longer at favorite toys? Implying, then, that toys they recognized but didn’t particularly like they found dull, in a manner of speaking.

  4. Yeah that is why you have to do it with all toys they have not seen before the day of the expt. Control conditions are really important, almost moreso with non verbal beings. I do a lot of work with animals testing memory, and I find that my colleagues that work with infants have the same sort of issues that I do with non humans.

  5. Presumably your colleagues do not mention that insight to the parents of the children they are studying. 😉

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