The transitivity of preconditioned infantile memories during deferred imitation

The current series of experiments investigated the ability of 6-month-old infants to form multiple associations during a sensory preconditioning procedure (SPC). A deferred imitation puppet task was used to measure infants' associative memories.; Experiment 1 examined if infants could form an association between each of two pairs of puppets during SPC and if extinguishing the just-formed association prevented imitation. Imitation of the target actions 24 hrs after they were modeled indicated that an associative chain had been formed between the stimuli during SPC training. The results indicated that infants can form associations between more than one pair of stimuli during SPC. Both preventing the opportunity to form the association in the first place and extinguishing it after it was formed disrupted imitation.; Experiment 2 examined if an additional association could be added to the prior associative chain and if exposing infants to more puppet exemplars during SPC would reduce the specificity of imitation. The results indicated that 6-month-old infants can form multiple associations between stimuli that they merely see together and that the multiple associations remained specific, despite the large number of stimuli to which infants were exposed.; Experiment 3 examined if the associative chains formed between puppets during SPC were bidirectional. Additionally, Experiment 3 investigated if the prior associative chain is affected by an extinction procedure after training. The results indicated that infants formed a bidirectional chain and exposure to one element separately after the imitation demonstration differentially affects forward and backward associative chains.; Experiment 4 examined the retention interval for two puppet pairs preexposed during SPC and if requiring infants to make use of either a forward or backward associative chain during testing influences imitation. The results indicated that the retention interval for the association formed in Phase 1 of SPC is at least 24 hr but not as long as 7 days regardless of the retrieval cue.; These current data suggests that 6-month-old infant's sensory preconditioned memories can display transitivity among elements of a bidirectional associative chain and, additionally, might be a marker for a declarative memory system at an earlier developmental age than is commonly assumed possible.