EXPLORING THE SEMINAL PHASE IN INFANT MEMORY FOR COLOR AND SHAPE

The way in which 5-month-old infants encode the color and shape of a stimulus during preliminary memory processing was investigated in three experiments by means of a familiarization paradigm involving a backward masking procedure. In the first of these experiments, infants were presented with 18 rapid (250 ms) exposures of a colored shape followed 1,000 ms later by a masking stimulus. Recognition, or extent of encoding, of the target stimulus was subsequently assessed on two test trials which paired this stimulus with another that was (respectively) novel in color or shape. Infants demonstrated recognition or encoding of color but not shape. A second experiment replicated these results with a different masking stimulus. The final experiment employed the same paradigm and stimuli as the first, but permitted infants 2,000 ms to encode the target before the onset of the mask. Under these conditions, infants demonstrated encoding of the shape, as well as the color, of the target stimulus. The results over the three experiments are considered to indicate one pattern of encoding for color and shape that is characterized by initial asynchrony followed, within 2 s, by relative equity of encoding for these features.