Latent Learning and Deferred Imitation at 3 Months

Young infants spend most of their waking time looking around, but whether they learn anything about what they see is unknown. We used a sensory preconditioning paradigm and a deferred imitation task to assess if 3-month-olds formed a latent association between 2 objects (S₁ , S₂ ) that they merely saw together. Because infants cannot perform the imitation task until 6 months, we maintained the latent memory with periodic reminders until then, when we modeled the target actions on S₁ and tested them with S₂ 24 hr later. At 6 months of age, infants who had seen S₁ and S₂ paired (but not unpaired) deferred imitation on S₂ , confirming that they had associated the objects 3 months earlier. In addition, 3-month-olds who saw the objects paired and then saw the target actions modeled on S₁ for 60 sec also recalled and imitated them on S₂ 3 months later, at 6 months of age. These data reveal that latent learning by very young infants is both extensive and enduring and document that the knowledge base begins to form early in life, long before infants are able to express what they know.