Social cues at encoding affect memory in 4-month-old infants

Abstract

Available evidence suggests that infants use adults' social cues for learning by the second half of the first year of life. However, little is known about the short-term or long-term effects of joint attention interactions on learning and memory in younger infants. In the present study, 4-month-old infants were familiarized with visually presented objects in either of two conditions that differed in the degree of joint attention (high vs. low). Brain activity in response to familiar and novel objects was assessed immediately after the familiarization phase (immediate recognition), and following a 1-week delay (delayed recognition). The latency of the Nc component differentiated between recognition of old versus new objects. Pb amplitude and latency were affected by joint attention in delayed recognition. Moreover, the frequency of infant gaze to the experimenter during familiarization differed between the two experimental groups and modulated the Pb response. Results show that joint attention affects the mechanisms of long-term retention in 4-month-old infants. We conclude that joint attention helps children at this young age to recognize the relevance of learned items.

Joint engagement modulates object discrimination in toddlers: a pilot electrophysiological investigation

“…This null result merits further investigation with a larger sample because analogous effects have been observed in infants (Kopp & Lindenberger, 2012) and the strength of the correlation observed here was in the moderate range ( r = −0.5). If further research confirms that the relation is nonsignificant, it would indicate that neural processing is independent of toddlers’ eliciting behaviors and it would highlight the importance of exploring neural markers of learning.…”

“…Infant studies report larger Nc amplitudes to unfamiliar stimuli. For instance, infants demonstrated a larger Nc amplitude to new objects compared to old objects regardless of exposure type (Kopp & Lindenberger, 2011, 2012). Elsewhere, infants showed a larger Nc to objects presented without social emphasis (averted gaze; Hoehl et al, 2008).…”

“…The N1 was interpreted as a marker of early visual discrimination of categories of stimuli (Kopp & Lindenberger, 2011). Our analysis focused on peak amplitude and latency of components (N1, Pb, and Nc) as well as mean amplitude for the Nc in keeping with previous studies (Hoehl, Reid, Mooney, & Striano, 2008; Kopp & Lindenberger, 2011, 2012; Striano, Reid, & Hoehl, 2006). Regions of interest were generated with clusters of electrodes in right, central, and left frontal regions (see Supplemental Figure 2) based on visual inspection of data and prior studies (Hoehl et al, 2012, 2012; Kopp & Lindenberger, 2011; Striano et al, 2006).…”

“…A more naturalistic test of JE involves a live examiner pointing to an object on a video monitor. In “high-magnitude” JE conditions, the examiner also comments about the target and/or adds an overlay of positive affect (Kopp & Lindenberger, 2011, 2012; Parise, Cleveland, Costabile, & Striano, 2007). …”

“…In contrast, 5-month olds demonstrated a more negative component (Nc), suggesting greater attentional resources to objects presented with JE than without it (Parise et al, 2007). JE magnitude modulated object encoding according to positive component (Pb) and PSW amplitude differences by condition (Kopp & Lindenberger, 2011, 2012). Frequency of glances to the examiner, implying coordinated social engagement, was correlated with the PSW amplitude to learned objects.…”