Infants' long-term memory for a serial list: Recognition and reactivation

Serial lists contain information about item identity and item order. Using a task designed for nonverbal animals, Mle previously found that 3- and 6-m onth-olds exhibited a primacy effect after 24 hi; remembering both item ide ntity and item order Presently, we examined their memory of list informatio n after longer delays. In Experiment I, the serial-position curve reverted to a U-shape after I week at both ages, revealing that the common practice of attributing primacy and recency effects to long- and short-term memory, respectively, is flawed. in Experiment 2, a precuing procedure confirmed th at 6-month-olds' memory still contained order information after I week, but 3-month-olds' reactivated memory contained none. Experiments 3A and 3B con firmed that increasing the complexity of information that was learned short ened the delay after which it could be retrieved. Testing infants after del ays longer than have previously been used with animals or. human adults she ds new light on an old phenomenon. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sorts, Inc.