Examining similarities and differences in visual recognition memory in infants residing in Malawi and the US

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - Attention, Learning, Memory

Abstract

The vast majority of developmental studies have been conducted with participants residing in Western, high-income countries. These studies have shaped our understanding of cognitive development despite the limitation that these samples differ dramatically from the rest of the world with respect to cultural values, parenting practices, exposure to technology, and other factors that may profoundly affect development. The visual paired comparison (VPC) procedure has been the “gold standard” for revealing individual differences in visual recognition memory in infants (Fagan, 1970; 1972; 1974) and has been used to study infants residing in non-Western contexts. However, much of this work the VPC procedure has been taken as an “off the shelf” assessment tool with little interest in understanding the processes that contribute to visual recognition memory in diverse contexts (Chhaya et al., 2018; Dallaire et al., 2012; Fraser et al., 2012; Rose, 1994; Siegel et al., 2011).

The purpose of the current study was to examine VPC performance in two samples of infants living in dramatically different cultural contexts. Specifically, we examined infants aged 6 to 9 months from a low-resource, rural, low-income community in Malawi (n = 261, Mage = 218 days, SDage = 38) and a sample of infants from a high-resourced, middle-class community in the US (n = 49, Mage = 224, SDage = 36). Our goal was to understand similarities and differences in visual recognition memory in these two samples. We tested infants from both regions in an eye-tracking version of the VPC procedure (Figure 1). On each experimental trial, infants were presented a familiarization array containing two identical faces; after a brief delay, infants were then shown a test array containing the now-familiar face paired with a novel face. Infants’ memory performance was then assessed by calculating a novelty preference score (i.e., the duration of looking at the novel face divided time spent looking at either face).

Infants from both the US and Malawi showed a preference for the novel stimulus that was significantly different from chance, p < .001. Mixed effects models revealed that novelty preference was associated with age in days for infants from Malawi (beta = 0.03, SE = 0.01, t = 4.68, p < .001), but not for infants from the US (beta = 0.00, SE = 0.01, t = 0.03, p = .976; Figure 2). These results show that while infants from both samples showed evidence of memory, age-related changes in visual recognition memory were evident for infants from Malawi, but not the US. We will explore this pattern in subsequent analyses. Overall, these findings provide evidence for contextual differences in the development of visual recognition memory and highlight the importance of assessing cognitive developmental processes in different cultural contexts.

Authors

• Aaron Gerald Beckner, University of South Carolina
  Presenting Author

• Michaela DeBolt, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zhijun Chen, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine Cox, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Megan G. Bragg
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bess L Caswell, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mathews George
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kenneth Maleta, College of Medicine, University of Malawi
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christine P Stewart, Institute for Global Nutrition, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lisa M Oakes, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth L Prado, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author