Heterogeneous object arrays increase working memory capacity in 7-month old infants

References 1. Luck, S.J. & Vogel, E.K. (1997). The capacity of visual working memory for features and conjunctions. Nature, 390, 279-281. 2. Feigenson, L., Carey, S. & Hauser, M. (2002). The representations underlying infants’ choice of more: Object-files versus analog magnitudes. Psychological Science, 13, 150-156. 3. Feigenson, L. & Carey, S. (2003). Tracking individuals via object-files: Evidence from infants’ manual search. Developmental Science, 6(5), 568-584. 4. Feigenson, L. & Halberda, J. (2004). Infants chunk object arrays into sets of individuals. Cognition, 91, 173-190. 5. Feigenson, L. & Halberda, J. (in revision at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Conceptual knowledge increases infants’ memory capacity. 6. Ross-Sheehy, S., Oakes, L.M. & Luck, S.J. (2003). The development of visual short-term memory capacity in infants. Child Development, 74(6), 1807-1822. 7. Kibbe, M.M. & Leslie, A.M. (2008). Infant working memory for objects has two distinct capacities. Poster presented at the biennial International Conference on Infant Studies, March 2008. Methods Subjects: 7-month-old infants (6;15 7;14) General setup: -Violation of expectation looking paradigm -2 familiarization trials -8 test trials (4 pairs of expected & unexpected outcomes) Conclusions 1. WM capacity at 7 months is less than 3 items 2. This capacity can be expanded using chunking