YOUNG INFANTS LONG-TERM AUDITORY MEMORY - EVIDENCE FOR CHANGES IN PREFERENCE AS A FUNCTION OF DELAY

Infants' preferences for-a novel or familiar nursery rhyme were examin ed as an index of long-term memory. One- to 2-month-old infants' prefe rences were tested, using a nonnutritive sucking, discrimination-learn ing procedure, at 1, 2, or 3 days after the last of multiple familiari zation sessions. A consistent novelty preference was observed at the 1 -day retention interval, no consistent preference occurred at the 2-da y interval, and a familiarity preference was found following the 3-day interval. This pattern of results is consistent with attentional pref erence models which interpret novelty and familiarity preferences as r eflecting the discrepancy between an external stimulus and the infant' s representation of the stimulus. The findings also reveal that infant s as young as 1 month of age encoded and subsequently recognized a rep eatedly experienced nursery rhyme after a 3-day retention interval. (C ) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.