The Effect of Learning Experiences and Context on Infant Imitation and Generalization

Abstract

Over the first years of life, infants gradually develop the ability to retrieve their memories across cue and contextual changes. Whereas maturational factors drive some of these developments in memory ability, experiences occurring within the learning event may also impact infants' ability to retrieve memories in new situations. In 2 experiments we examined whether it was possible to facilitate 12‐month‐old infants' generalization of learning in the deferred imitation paradigm by varying experiences before or during the demonstration session, or during the retention interval. In Experiment 1, altering the length, timing, or variability of training had no impact on generalization; infants showed a low, but consistent level of memory retrieval. In Experiment 2, infants who experienced a unique context for encoding and retrieval exhibited generalization; infants who experienced the context prior to the demonstration session, or during the retention interval, did not. Specificity is a robust feature of infant memory and is not substantially altered by encoding experiences in an observational learning paradigm. Previous history with a learning environment can, however, impact the flexibility of memory retrieval.

Gist extraction and sleep in 12-month-old infants

“…However, Jones and Herbert (2008) found that 12-month-olds applied their knowledge about two different hand puppets of a similar overall appearance to a novel puppet after a 10-minute delay during which the infants were awake. Given the similarity between the present experiment and Jones and…”

“…During the demonstration/practice session the infant sat on the caregiver's lap, held by the hips. A female experimenter knelt in front of the infant and demonstrated three target actions once out of the infant's reach with the first puppet: removing the mitten from the puppet, shaking the mitten three times ringing the bell inside, and replacing the mitten (Jones & Herbert, 2008). Immediately after this demonstration, the infant had the opportunity to practice the target actions once to enhance encoding opportunities (Hayne, Barr, & Herbert, 2003).…”

“…Using a deferred imitation procedure, Konrad, Seehagen, Schneider, and Herbert (2016) recently found that napping after learning facilitated 12-month-old infants' ability to generalize knowledge from one hand puppet to another hand puppet that differed in color from the demonstration puppet. This finding, together with those of Jones and Herbert (2008)in which infants extracted gist from two similar puppets after a short delay spent awake, provide the opportunity to consider associations between sleep and gist extraction in infants' overt behaviour. In the present study, we used a similar imitation procedure as Jones and Herbert (2008) and asked whether napping after a learning experience that involved observing demonstrations of the same target actions with three different stimuli from the same category (i.e., hand puppets) would facilitate the retention of the extracted gist over a longer delay.…”

“…This finding, together with those of Jones and Herbert (2008)in which infants extracted gist from two similar puppets after a short delay spent awake, provide the opportunity to consider associations between sleep and gist extraction in infants' overt behaviour. In the present study, we used a similar imitation procedure as Jones and Herbert (2008) and asked whether napping after a learning experience that involved observing demonstrations of the same target actions with three different stimuli from the same category (i.e., hand puppets) would facilitate the retention of the extracted gist over a longer delay. We predicted that only infants who napped after learning would produce a higher number of target actions at test on a novel fourth puppet than infants in an age-matched control group who did not observe any demonstrations of the target actions.…”

“…They did not spontaneously categorize according to function. Function-based and similarity-based categorization was also investigated in a deferred imitation study (Jones and Herbert, 2008).…”