Week 3 Post 1

One thing that stuck out to me while reading, was how infants’ memory works.  Young infants can remember things, even if they cannot put their memories into words later in life.  The ways for an infant to best remember things is if the experimental conditions are like those in real life, if they have high motivation, and if their memory is strengthened by constant reminders.  I found Rovee-Collier’s research study on infant memory to have included all three of these circumstances. In this study she used a mobile that was placed above an infant’s bed so that when an infant would lie down they could see the mobile.  She then tied string around the mobile and the infant’s foot.  Every time the infant would kick, the mobile would move.  Since the infant had seen the mobile before, they were already accustomed to it.  Each time the mobile moved their motivation grew causing them to keep kicking.   This study showed that infants as young as three months can show signs of memory after two weeks.  However, there needs to be reminder sessions within these two weeks.  The reminder sessions allowed the infant to remember that kicking causes the mobile because each time they kicked it would move.  Overall I thought this experiment was very interesting in better understanding how infants’ memory works.  I also think it’s neat that the infant in this experiment will remember to keep kicking so that the mobile continues to move, but will fail to recall this situation in the future.