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Early developments in the ability to understand the relation between stimulus and reward.
A Diamond1, A Churchland, L Cruess
1Center for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, Waltham, Massachusetts 02452, USA. adiamond@shriver.org
Developmental Psychology
|November 24, 1999
Summary
Infants as young as 9 months can succeed at recognition memory tasks when rewards are integrated with stimuli, suggesting a link between understanding stimulus-reward relations and task performance.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Delayed nonmatching to sample (DNMS) assesses medial temporal lobe-dependent recognition memory.
- Infants typically achieve success on DNMS around 21 months, despite earlier development of robust recognition memory.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the late-emerging competence critical for DNMS success in infants.
- To determine if understanding the stimulus-reward relation underlies DNMS task performance.
Main Methods:
- Tested 9- and 12-month-old infants on three DNMS conditions.
- Standard condition: reward beneath stimulus.
- Verbal-reward condition: praise as reward.
- Velcro condition: reward attached to stimulus base.
Main Results:
- Infants succeeded in verbal-reward and Velcro conditions at both ages.
- Infants failed to succeed in the standard DNMS condition.
- Performance varied based on the integration of stimulus and reward.
Conclusions:
- The ability to associate stimuli with rewards is a critical factor for DNMS success.
- Early infant success on DNMS may depend on understanding the stimulus as a symbol for reward.
- Developmental changes in understanding stimulus-reward associations impact recognition memory task performance.