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Updated: Aug 18, 2026
Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Decreases in the response latency to priming over the first year of life
1Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8020, USA.
Insights
Infant memory reactivation shows faster responses with age. This study reveals that memory priming in infants becomes quicker, similar to adult perceptual identification, as they approach one year old.
Area of Science:
- Developmental psychology
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Infant memory research
Background:
- Previous research indicated decreasing response latency to memory primes between 3 and 6 months of age.
- Infant memory reactivation procedures are crucial for understanding early cognitive development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To extend the analysis of memory reactivation latency through the first year of life.
- To investigate age-related changes in infant memory retention and priming effects.
Main Methods:
- Infants aged 6, 9, and 12 months learned an operant task.
- After a forgetting period (1 week), infants received a memory prime related to the task.
- Retention was tested after varying delays, measuring response latency.
Main Results:
- Response latency after priming decreased linearly with age, from 1 hour at 6 months to 0-1 second at 12 months.
- The interval between learning and priming increased with age (3 weeks at 6 months to 9 weeks at 12 months).
- Latency was consistent across different tasks at 6 months, suggesting a general phenomenon.
Conclusions:
- Priming in infant reactivation studies reflects an automatic perceptual identification process, analogous to adult repetition priming.
- Cognitive abilities related to memory reactivation mature significantly within the first year of life.
- Findings support the universality of perceptual identification mechanisms across different age groups.
Abstract:
We previously reported that the latency of responding to a memory prime in a reactivation procedure decreases between 3 and 6 months of age. The present study extended this analysis through the first year of life. In this study, 6-, 9-, and 12-month-olds learned an operant task. One week after they had forgotten it, infants were exposed to a component of the original event as a memory prime and were tested after different delays for evidence of retention. Although the interval between the original event and priming increased linearly with age-from 3 weeks at 6 months to 9 weeks at 12 months, the latency of responding after priming decreased linearly with age-from 1 hr at 6 months to 0-1 s at 12 months. The latency of responding after priming was not task-specific; at 6 months, it was identical in two different tasks. These results provide additional evidence that priming in reactivation studies with infants is the same automatic, perceptual identification phenomenon as repetition priming in studies with adults.
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