Richmond Jenny L, Power Jessica
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Dev Psychobiol. 2014 Sep;56(6):1341-51. doi: 10.1002/dev.21213. Epub 2014 Mar 14.
Relational memory, or the ability to bind components of an event into a network of linked representations, is a primary function of the hippocampus. Here we extend eye-tracking research showing that infants are capable of forming memories for the relation between arbitrarily paired scenes and faces, by looking at age-related changes in relational memory over the first year of life. Six- and 12-month-old infants were familiarized with pairs of faces and scenes before being tested with arrays of three familiar faces that were presented on a familiar scene. Preferential looking at the face that matches the scene is typically taken as evidence of relational memory. The results showed that while 6-month-old showed very early preferential looking when face/scene pairs were tested immediately, 12-month-old did not exhibit evidence of relational memory either immediately or after a short delay. Theoretical implications for the functional development of the hippocampus and practical implications for the use of eye tracking to measure memory during early life are discussed.
关系记忆，即将一个事件的各个组成部分绑定到一个相互关联的表征网络中的能力，是海马体的主要功能。在此，我们拓展了眼动追踪研究，通过观察婴儿在生命第一年中关系记忆与年龄相关的变化，表明婴儿能够形成关于任意配对的场景和面孔之间关系的记忆。6个月和12个月大的婴儿在熟悉了多对面孔和场景后，接受了在熟悉场景中呈现的三张熟悉面孔阵列的测试。通常将优先注视与场景匹配的面孔视为关系记忆的证据。结果显示，虽然6个月大的婴儿在面孔/场景对立即进行测试时表现出非常早期的优先注视，但12个月大的婴儿无论是在测试后立即还是经过短暂延迟后，都没有表现出关系记忆的证据。本文讨论了对海马体功能发育的理论意义以及眼动追踪在测量早期生命阶段记忆方面的实际应用意义。
