Mediated imitation in 6-month-olds: Remembering by association

In two experiments with 72 6-month-olds, we examined whether associating an imitation task with an operant task affects infants' memory for either tas k. Tn Experiment 1, infants who imitated target actions that were modeled f or 60 s on a hand puppet remembered them for only 1 day. We hypothesized th at if infants associated the puppet imitation task with a longer-remembered operant task, then they might remember it longer too. In Experiment 2, inf ants learned to press a lever to activate a miniature train-a task 6-month- olds remember for 2 weeks-and saw the target actions modeled immediately af terward. These infants successfully imitated for up to 2 weeks, but only if the train memory was retrieved first. A follow-up experiment revealed that the learned association was bidirectional. This is the first demonstration of mediated imitation in 6-month-olds across two very different paradigms and reveals that associations are an important means of protracting memorie s. (C) 2001 Academic Press.