Long-term recognition memory for faces assessed by visual paired comparison in 3- and 6-month-old infants

Many authors argue that operant conditioning is the only type of long term memory present in infants prior to 6 months of age. As a consequence, it is also viewed as the only type of memory that might contribute to cognitive competencies developement during the first 6 months of life. In this study, memory for faces was investigated in 3- and 6-month-old infants with a visual paired comparison task. In Experiment 1 infants were habituated to a face presented through different poses; recognition was assessed with a new pose of the same face and a novel face after a 2-minute or a 24-hour retention interval. Male and female 6-month-olds and male but not females 3-month-olds exhibited novelty preferences. This gender difference was investigated in a second experiment, which showed that 3-month-old females are delayed relative to males in their face processing ability rather than in their memory capacity. Results of Experiment 3 demonstrated in 3-month-olds an electrophysiological correlate (event-related potentials) of recognition memory similar to that shown in Experiment 1. These finding are discussed in the context of the neural systems thought to be involved in visual recognition memory (but not in procedural memory), namely the hippocampal formation and adjacent cortex. 3 Long Term Recognition Memory for Faces Assessed b