The Robustness of Infant Haptic Memory: Testing Its Capacity to Withstand Delay and Haptic Interference

Abstract

The robustness of infant haptic memory was assessed in terms of its capacity to withstand either a brief delay or potential retroactive "interference" from other haptic input. 48 infants (mean age 8 months) were familiarized haptically to a small cube or sphere with smooth or rough surface texture and subsequently tested for recognition of the shape and texture of this stimulus in terms of the relative level of haptic response to 3 test stimuli, comprising the familiar stimulus, a new-shape stimulus, and a new-texture stimulus. The test stimuli were presented (a) immediately, (b) after a 5-min delay, or (c) after a second familiarization or "interference" phase involving another haptic stimulus different in shape and texture to the first. The infants demonstrated recognition of shape and texture in the No Delay condition, of shape and (marginally) of texture in the Delay condition, but only of texture in the Interference condition. The greater susceptibility of shape to interference was considered in terms of the degree of similarity among the shapes employed in the study.

The cognitive and neural correlates of tactile memory.

“…In the future, it would be interesting to investigate whether visual information presented during the retention interval might impair the retention of tactile information in infants in a fashion similar to that reported with tactile distractors (e.g., Catherwood, 1993). Such a result would be suggestive of early multisensory interactions in the storage of haptically explored stimuli (see 2003,2004, for evidence that newborns can visually recognize the shape of an object that they have previously manipulated with their right hand, out of sight).…”

Tactual perception: a review of experimental variables and procedures

“…With the novelty paradigm, the existence of some form of tactile memory has been reported in children as young as two months old (Lhote and Streri 1998), and even newborns were capable of detecting changes in two stimuli with either hand (Streri et al 2000). Also, Catherwood (1993), in a study with infants with about eight months of age, showed retention of tactile information for both shape and texture with immediate recognition, for shape and to lesser extent texture after a delay and only for texture in interference conditions. Corbetta and Snapp-Childs (2009) highlighted the role of touch in early development, considering that coordination between touch and vision is crucial to maintain an interaction with the surrounding stimuli, and trying to analyse the relative weight of tactile and visual experience in the modulation of grasping, reaching and other objectoriented motor responses of six-to nine-month-old children.…”

The emergence and early development of autobiographical memory.

“…Moreover, recognition is not limited to the visual modality. Catherwood (1993) showed that 8-month-olds could retain information about the shape of an object explored haptically over a 5-min retention interval, in spite of the presence of interfering haptic stimuli. Swain, Zelazo, and Clifton (1993) used habituation and recovery of a head-turn response to demonstrate that neonates exposed postnatally to speech sounds retained a memory for those sounds over a 24-hr interval.…”