Hildreth Karen, Hill Debra
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8020, USA.
Dev Psychobiol. 2003 Nov;43(3):216-29. doi: 10.1002/dev.10135.
A newly acquired memory is remembered longer when its retrieval is more difficult (i.e., when the time since the last retrieval is longer). In two experiments using an operant conditioning task with 198 infants between 3 and 12 months of age, we presently asked if a reactivated memory also is remembered longer when its retrieval is more difficult. During their first year, infants remember a memory reactivated 1 week after forgetting and the newly acquired memory equally as long. After determining the upper limit (UL) of reactivation at all ages (Experiment 1), we reactivated the memory near the UL and then measured its subsequent persistence (Experiment 2). We found that increasing the training-reactivation interval enhanced retention at 6 months only. These data reveal that increasing retrieval difficulty affects infants' retention of newly acquired and reactivated memories differently. More generally, memory reactivation seems to disproportionately benefit retention in younger infants.
当新获取的记忆的提取更加困难时（即自上次提取以来的时间更长时），它会被记住更长时间。在两项针对198名3至12个月大婴儿的操作性条件反射任务实验中，我们目前询问当重新激活的记忆的提取更加困难时，它是否也会被记住更长时间。在婴儿的第一年中，他们对遗忘1周后重新激活的记忆和新获取的记忆的记忆时长相同。在确定了所有年龄段重新激活的上限（UL）后（实验1），我们在接近上限的情况下重新激活记忆，然后测量其随后的持续性（实验2）。我们发现，仅在6个月大时，增加训练-重新激活间隔会增强记忆保持。这些数据表明，增加提取难度对婴儿新获取的记忆和重新激活的记忆的保持影响不同。更普遍地说，记忆重新激活似乎对年幼儿童的记忆保持有不成比例的益处。
