Richmond Jenny L, Zhao Jenna L, Burns Mary A
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2015 Feb;130:79-91. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.09.013. Epub 2014 Oct 27.
Episodic memory involves binding components of an event (who, what, when, and where) into a relational representation. The ability to encode information about the relative locations of objects (i.e., spatial relational memory) is a key component of episodic memory. Here we used eye tracking to test whether infants and toddlers learn about the spatial relations among objects. In Experiment 1, 9-, 18-, and 27-month olds were familiarized with an array of three objects. Following familiarization, they saw test arrays in which two of the objects had been replaced with novel ones (object switch condition) and arrays in which two of the objects had switched positions (location switch condition). Both 18- and 27-month olds looked significantly longer than would be predicted by chance at the objects that had switched spatial locations; however, 9-month olds did not. In Experiment 2, we showed that, given sufficient familiarization time, 9-month olds were also capable of detecting disruptions to the spatial relations among an array of objects. These results have important implications for our understanding of spatial relational memory development.
情景记忆涉及将一个事件的各个组成部分（何人、何事、何时以及何地）整合为一种关系表征。对物体相对位置信息进行编码的能力（即空间关系记忆）是情景记忆的关键组成部分。在此，我们运用眼动追踪技术来测试婴幼儿是否能学习物体间的空间关系。在实验1中，我们让9个月、18个月和27个月大的婴幼儿熟悉一组包含三个物体的阵列。熟悉之后，他们会看到测试阵列，其中两个物体被换成了新的（物体切换条件），以及两个物体交换了位置的阵列（位置切换条件）。18个月和27个月大的婴幼儿对空间位置发生变化的物体的注视时间显著长于随机预期；然而，9个月大的婴幼儿则没有。在实验2中，我们表明，给予足够的熟悉时间后，9个月大的婴幼儿也能够察觉物体阵列间空间关系的破坏。这些结果对于我们理解空间关系记忆的发展具有重要意义。
