The Benefit of Visual Exploration on Toddlers' Memory Accuracy

• In Event: What's that? How Visual Distraction May Help, or Hinder, Infants' and Children's Memory

Abstract

Introduction. Novelty preferences have long been used as indicators of memory in infants and young children. Memory for experienced stimuli is inferred from participants looking longer at novel relative to old stimuli, due to attention being captured by novel stimuli. Novelty preferences have proved effective at elucidating key factors affecting memory functioning without placing any response demand (Morgan & Hayne, 2011). Although not requiring a response from infants is a strength of the method, it raises the question of how young children can report on their memories in the face of this attentional capture towards novel stimuli. Our previous research has suggested that when 2-year-olds are asked to make overt memory decisions (e.g. identify which of two images was previously shown), novelty preferences hinder some toddlers’ abilities to make accurate decisions. Toddlers who performed well exhibited lowered novelty preferences, compared to ones who performed at chance, despite both groups showing high novelty preferences when no decision was required. In the current study, we hypothesized that if the novel stimulus acted as an attentional capture, interfering with memory decisions, memory performance should benefit from manipulations aimed at briefly directing toddler’s attention away from the novel stimulus.

Sample and Methods. We tested this hypothesis in 2-year-olds (N=50) under two within-subject memory testing conditions (passive versus active) and a between-subject attentional manipulation (flicker versus control), administered on a Tobii T120 eye tracker over two lab sessions spaced a week apart. In the passive-memory-task, children viewed ten pictures and then passively viewed ten retrieval trials in which a studied and a novel picture were presented. In the active-memory-task, toddlers were exposed to the same procedure except that during the retrieval phase they were asked to point to the studied drawings. For the attentional manipulation, in the flicker condition, during the retrieval trials, one second into the trial, the studied image increased in size briefly (500 milliseconds), then returned to its original size. In the control condition both pictures remained the same size; this condition was identical to our previous studies.

Results and Conclusions. Toddlers showed lower novelty preferences in the flicker (M = .50, SD = .13) compared to the control (M = .55, SD = .11) condition, t(99.36)= -2.34, p = .02, d = -.46. They also produced more gaze switches between images for the flicker (M = 2.58, SD = 1.25) compared to the static (M = 1.80, SD = .88) condition, t(93.78) = 3.71, p < .001, d = .73. In addition, toddlers showed higher accuracy in the active-memory-task for the flicker (M = .58, SD = .21) compared to the static (M = .46, SD = .18) condition, t(47.63) = 2.22, p = .03, d = .62. These results suggest that the attentional manipulation of a brief flicker induced better visual exploration and increased their accuracy. Future research will further examine this attentional manipulation, testing different placements of the flicker manipulation and their impacts on looking behaviors and accuracy of toddlers.

Authors

• Sarah Leckey, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author

• Simona Ghetti, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author