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Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
Crawling is associated with more flexible memory retrieval by 9-month-old infants
Jane Herbert1, Julien Gross, Harlene Hayne
1Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK. J.S.Herbert@sheffield.ac.uk
Abstract:
In the present experiment, we used a deferred imitation paradigm to explore the effect of crawling on memory retrieval by 9-month-old human infants. Infants observed an experimenter demonstrate a single target action with a novel object and their ability to reproduce that action was assessed after a 24-hr delay. Some infants were tested with the demonstration stimulus in the demonstration context and some infants were tested with a different stimulus in a different context. Half of the infants in each test condition were crawling at the time of participation and half were not. Both crawling and non-crawling infants exhibited retention when tested with the demonstration stimulus in the demonstration context, but only infants who were crawling by 9 months of age exhibited retention when tested with a different stimulus in a different context. These findings demonstrate that the onset of independent locomotion is associated with more flexible memory retrieval during the first year of life.
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