Ressel, V. & Sebastian-Galles, N.
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Infants’ abilities have been the focus of many studies in the past decades. Here, we explored if 12-month-old infants are able to recall features of episodes: the identity of objects, the performed trajectory of the objects and an expected outcome. Thirty-one healthy infants were investigated using a newly developed implicit recall task, which eliminates the need for verbal output. A video was presented in which pictures of four puppets performed a trajectory from the middle upper part to the left bottom or to the right bottom part of a screen (two puppets moving all the trials to the same side). After an encoding phase, the trajectory was occluded in the retrieval phase to assess if infants remember the identity and trajectory of the puppets. An eye tracking system was used to record eye fixation length for anticipatory gaze during the occlusion. Correct performance by looking longer to the expected side was seen, suggesting interplay between encoding and the retrieval of identity of objects and their spatial trajectories. Although a high variability between participants was found, evidence for early episodic-like memory was present in this age group.