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The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
Published on: February 19, 2018
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What goes where? Eye tracking reveals spatial relational memory during infancy.
Jenny L Richmond1, Jenna L Zhao1, Mary A Burns1
1School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|December 3, 2014
Summary
Infants learn spatial relations between objects, a key part of memory. Older infants detect location changes, while younger infants can learn with more familiarization time.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Developmental psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Episodic memory involves integrating event components (who, what, when, where) into a cohesive representation.
- Spatial relational memory, the ability to recall object locations, is crucial for episodic memory formation.
- Understanding the developmental trajectory of spatial relational memory in infants and toddlers is essential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether infants and toddlers can learn and represent spatial relationships among objects.
- To determine the developmental emergence of spatial relational memory using eye-tracking methodology.
- To explore the influence of familiarization time on 9-month-old infants' ability to detect spatial disruptions.
Main Methods:
- Eye-tracking was employed to measure infants' visual attention to changes in object arrays.
- Experiment 1 involved familiarizing 9-, 18-, and 27-month-olds with object arrays and testing their responses to object switches versus location switches.
- Experiment 2 focused on 9-month-olds, manipulating familiarization duration to assess their sensitivity to spatial relation changes.
Main Results:
- 18- and 27-month-olds demonstrated significant looking times at location-switched arrays, indicating detection of spatial changes.
- 9-month-olds did not show significant looking time differences in Experiment 1.
- In Experiment 2, 9-month-olds successfully detected spatial relation disruptions when provided with adequate familiarization time.
Conclusions:
- Spatial relational memory abilities develop significantly between 9 and 18 months of age.
- Early development of spatial relational memory is influenced by the amount of exposure or familiarization.
- These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the foundational mechanisms of episodic memory development in early childhood.
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