Long-term maintenance of infant memory

The present experiments with human infants asked whether periodic nonverbal reminders could maintain a memory established at 2 months of age over a su bstantial period of development. In Experiment 1, a reactivation reminder r ecovered infants' forgotten memory after 3 weeks, but a reinstatement remin der did not. In Experiment 2, 2-month-old's received a reminder every 3 wee ks through 61/2 months of age and a final rest at 71/4 months of age. A pre liminary retention test preceeded each reminder, which type of reminder (re instatement or reactivation) infants test preceded on performance during th is test. Infants exhibited significant retention 41/2 months later, and mos t remembered 51/4 months later, when infants outgrew the task. Untrained co ntrols exhibited no retention after any delay. These data confirm that peri odic reminders can maintain early memories over significant periods of deve lopment and challenge popular claims that preverbal human infants cannot ma intain memories over the long term because of neural immaturity or an inabi lity to rehearse experiences by talking about them. (C) 1999 John Wiley & S ons, Inc.