Infants' object location and identity processing in spatial scenes: an ERP study

Abstract

BackgroundFast detection and identification of objects in an environment is important for using objects as landmarks during navigation. While adults rapidly process objects within an environment and use landmarks during navigation, infants do not routinely use distal landmarks below the age of 18 months. In the current event-related potential (ERP) study we adopted an oddball paradigm to examine whether infants are capable of processing objects in environments, which is a prerequisite for using objects as landmarks.MethodsWe measured the electrophysiological correlates and time courses related to the processing of changes in object location, object identity, and a switch of two objects.ResultsTwelve-month-old infants showed an Nc (negative central) effect reflecting increased attention likely caused by initial change detection within 300 msec for all three manipulations. In addition, they showed conscious processing of an object change and a location change as evidenced by a positive slow wave (PSW).ConclusionThis study is the first to show that infants are capable of rapidly detecting changes in single objects when these are presented in an environment, but lack conscious detection of a switch. These results indicate that 12-month-old infants as yet lack the ability to rapidly bind the identity and location of multiple objects within an environment.

An Eye Tracking Investigation of Color–Location Binding in Infants' Visual Short‐Term Memory

“…van Hoogmoed et al. () used an ERP oddball task and found that 12‐month‐old infants' ability to detect changes in object‐identity bindings in visual scenes was not fully developed. Importantly, in these previous studies, infants were given the opportunity to learn the location–identity relation over multiple trials.…”

“…There is some evidence that infants bind information in memory representations. In studies in which bindings were learned over successive trials (therefore tapping longer‐term memory systems), infants between 4 and 12 months of age show evidence of learning bindings—and responding to a violation in binding—although the evidence varies in terms of the kinds of features and the task (Mareschal & Johnson, ; Newcombe, Huttenlocher, & Learmonth, ; van Hoogmoed, van den Brink, & Janzen, ). Indeed, developmental changes in the ability to bind features to objects stored in memory has been suggested as one possible mechanism underlying age‐related changes in infants' performance on tasks that require them to remember information about hidden objects (e.g., Wang & Baillargeon, ; Wilcox & Schweinle, ).…”