Psychology Research Works

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Subject: search.filters.subject.elicited imitation

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    Forming a stable memory representation in the first year of life: Why imitation is more than child's play.
    (2005) Lukowski, A.F.; Wiebe, S.A.; Haight, J.C.; DeBoer, T.; Nelson, C.A.; Bauer, P.J.
    Although 9-month-old infants are capable of retaining temporally ordered information over long delays, this ability is relatively fragile. It may be possible to facilitate long-term retention by allowing infants to imitate event sequences immediately after their presentation. The effects of imitation on immediate and delayed recognition and on long-term recall were investigated using event-related potentials (ERPs) and elicited imitation, respectively. Mnemonic facilitation resulting from the opportunity to imitate was apparent using both assessments. ERP assessments at immediate and delayed recognition tests suggested that infants who were allowed to imitate had stronger memory representations of familiar stimuli relative to infants who only viewed the presentation of the events. In addition, infants who were allowed to imitate evidenced higher levels of ordered recall after 1 month relative to infants who only watched the experimenter’s demonstration. Therefore, imitation proved to have beneficial effects on explicit memory in 9 1 / 2 -month-olds, providing evidence of its effectiveness as a tool to augment mnemonic capabilities in infancy.
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    Neurobehavioral sequelae of infants of diabetic mothers: Deficits in explicit memory at 1 year of age.
    (Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 2005) DeBoer, T; Wewerka, S; Bauer, P J; Georgieff, M K
    The aim of the present research was to investigate the impact of abnormal fetal environment on explicit memory performance. Based on animal models, it was hypothesized that infants of diabetic mothers (IDMs) experience perturbations in memory performance due to exposure to multiple neurologic risk factors including: chronic hypoxia, hyperglycemia/reactive hypoglycemia, and iron deficiency. Memory performance, as measured by the elicited/deferred imitation paradigm, was compared between 13 IDMs (seven females, six males; mean age 365 days, SD 11) and 16 typically developing children (seven females, nine males; mean age 379 days, SD 9). The IDM group was characterized by shorter gestational age (mean 38w, SD 2), greater standardized birthweight scores (mean 3797g, SD 947), and lower iron stores (mean ferritin concentration 87g/L, SD 68) in comparison with the control group (mean gestational age: 40w, SD 1; mean birthweight: 3639g, SD 348; mean newborn ferritin concentration 140g/L, SD 46). After statistically controlling for both gestational age and global cognitive abilities, IDMs demonstrated a deficit in the ability to recall multi-step event sequences after a delay was imposed. These findings highlight the importance of the prenatal environment on subsequent mnemonic behavior and suggest a connection between metabolic abnormalities during the prenatal period, development of memory, circuitry, and behavioral mnemonic performance.