Memory for Faces in Infants: A Comparison to the Memory for Objects

Memory for faces and objects was investigated in 8- to 10-month infants. As the experience for memorizing the target face or object, face-to-face interactions between infant and experimenter in almost natural settings were conducted. To assess memory retention, two-alternative preferential looking tests were done after both a 3-minute delay and a 1-week delay from the familiarization phase. In the 3-minute delay condition, the infants looked more at the novel (not-the-experimenter) face that had not been experienced before, than the familiar (the experimenter) one. This shows that the infants memorize faces from limited experience at least for 3 minutes. On the other hand, the infants showed no such results in the object condition. These results might suggest specific processing for faces that cannot be applied for object stimuli. More detailed examinations should be done to examine this possibility