Development of short-term memory: Chunking in infancy

短期记忆的发展：婴儿期的组块

• 批准号: 7305678
• 负责人: LISA FEIGENSON
• 金额: $ 8.2万
• 依托单位: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-01 至 2009-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7305678
• 关键词: Adult; Appearance; Classification; Color; Cues; Development; Foundations; Goals; Grouping; Individual; Infant; Knowledge; Manuals; Measures; Memory; Memory Disorders; Nature; Numbers; Population; Process; Reading; Research; Semantics; Series; Shapes; Short-Term Memory; Testing; Variant; base; improved; infancy; research study; size; skills

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research aims to study the developmental origins of chunking, the process by which short-term memory representations are reorganized to enable greater storage capacity. Previous research has found that both adults and infants are limited to storing approximately 3 items in short-term memory. For example, infants can remember up to 3 hidden objects but fail to remember larger numbers. Adults can overcome this 3-item memory limit by grouping items into meaningful units or chunks. Doing so can vastly increase short-term memory capacity. Recently, my lab demonstrated that this ability is present early in development: untrained 14-month old infants can also chunk items (Feigenson & Halberda, 2004). When shown object arrays that were then hidden, infants remembered more objects if they were initially presented in two spatially-defined sets of 2 than when no such grouping cues were present and the objects appeared as a single set of 4. Hence, infants can use spatial cues to chunk items into sets, thereby increasing the total number of items they can remember. Several important questions arise regarding the nature of this fundamental memory computation. First, can infants use other, non-spatial cues to chunk individual items into sets? Perceptual features such as color or size are also strong Gestalt grouping cues for adults. It is unknown whether these perceptual cues can also support chunking in infants. Second, can infants chunk items based on semantic knowledge? Evidence for such an endogenous computation, driven by previously-acquired knowledge about object kinds, would more closely align infant and adult chunking. Third, what are the parametric limits on infants' chunking abilities? While infants can remember up to 4 hidden objects via chunking, it is unclear whether they can also represent more items. Specifically, is open how many chunks, and how many individual items within each chunk, infants can store. Taken together, the proposed project aims to elucidate the origins of an essential memory computation. The experiments will reveal the ways in which the limits on infants' short-term memory, and mechanisms that can allow those limits to be overcome, are similar to and different from those of mature adults. Ultimately, the proposed studies will contribute to the broader goal of understanding continuities and discontinuities in memory development, and may have repercussions for studying disorders of memory computations or for strategies for improving memory. The proposed project aims to contribute to the larger goal of understanding memory development by investigating short-term memory in a normally-developing population of infants. In documenting the early appearance of memory computations such as chunking, the project may have repercussions for understanding disorders of memory, difficulties in skills such as reading or math that rely on short-term memory, or strategies for improving memory.

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究旨在研究分块的发展起源，即短期记忆表征重组以获得更大存储容量的过程。先前的研究发现，成人和婴儿在短期记忆中都只能存储大约3个项目。例如，婴儿可以记住最多3个隐藏的物体，但不能记住更大的数字。成年人可以通过将项目分组成有意义的单元或块来克服3个项目的记忆限制。这样做可以大大增加短期记忆容量。最近，我的实验室证明了这种能力存在于发育的早期：未经训练的14个月大的婴儿也可以将物品分组（Feigenson & Halberda, 2004）。当婴儿看到被隐藏的物体数组时，如果他们最初以两组有空间定义的2组的形式出现，那么他们记住的物体比没有这种分组提示并且以一组4个的形式出现的时候更多。因此，婴儿可以使用空间线索将项目分成组，从而增加他们可以记住的项目总数。关于这种基本内存计算的性质，出现了几个重要的问题。首先，婴儿是否可以使用其他非空间线索将单个物品分成一组？对成年人来说，颜色或大小等感知特征也是很强的格式塔分类线索。目前尚不清楚这些知觉线索是否也能支持婴儿的组块记忆。第二，婴儿是否可以根据语义知识对物品进行分组？这种由先前获得的关于对象类型的知识驱动的内源性计算的证据，将更紧密地将婴儿和成人的分块计算联系起来。第三，幼儿组块能力的参数限制是什么？虽然婴儿可以通过分组记忆记住多达4个隐藏的物体，但尚不清楚他们是否还能代表更多的物体。具体来说，是打开了多少块，以及每个块中有多少个单独的项目，婴儿可以存储。总的来说，提议的项目旨在阐明基本内存计算的起源。这些实验将揭示婴儿短期记忆的限制方式，以及允许这些限制被克服的机制，与成熟的成年人相似而又不同。最终，这些研究将有助于理解记忆发展中的连续性和非连续性，并可能对研究记忆计算障碍或改善记忆的策略产生影响。该项目旨在通过研究正常发育的婴儿群体的短期记忆，为理解记忆发展这一更大的目标做出贡献。在记录记忆计算（如分块）早期出现的过程中，该项目可能会对理解记忆障碍、依赖短期记忆的阅读或数学等技能的困难或改善记忆的策略产生影响。