THE EFFECT OF RETRIEVAL CUES ON VISUAL PREFERENCES AND MEMORY IN INFANCY - EVIDENCE FOR A 4-PHASE ATTENTION FUNCTION

Bahrick and Pickens (1995) proposed a four-phase model of infant atten tion, suggesting that recent memories are expressed as a visual prefer ence for novelty, intermediate memories as a null preference, and remo te memories as a preference for familiarity. The present study tested a hypothesis generated from this model that a retrieval cue would incr ease memory accessibility and shift visual preferences toward greater novelty to resemble more recent memories. Results confirmed our predic tions. After retention intervals associated with remote memory, previo usly observed familiarity preferences shifted to null preferences, whe reas after a retention interval associated with intermediate memory, t he previously observed null preference shifted to a novelty preference . Further, a second experiment found that increasing the exposure to t he retrieval cue could shift the familiarity preference to a novelty p reference. These findings support the four-phase model of infant atten tion and suggest that novelty, null, and familiarity preferences lie a long a continuum and shift as a function of memory accessibility. (C) 1997 Academic Press.