After 8 months have passed: long-term recall of events by 1- to 2-year-old children

Abstract

The time course of development of the ability to remember specific past events is a matter of considerable curiosity and debate. Traditional and contemporary theories alike suggest that infants are unable to consolidate and stabilise event knowledge for recall after a long time period. In two experiments, we used elicited imitation, a nonverbal analogue to cued verbal recall, to test 21-, 24-, and 29-month-old children's recall of events they had experienced eight months previously. At the time of original exposure some of the events were novel, whereas others depicted activities familiar to 1-year-olds. At the eight-month retention test, performance of the experienced children was compared to that of matched naive controls. In both experiments the experienced children produced a greater number of the novel events; there were no differences between the groups on the familiar events. The results demonstrate long-term recall of specific past events by 1- to 2-year-olds. They thus challenge the suggestion that the absence of memories from infancy and early childhood is attributable to the inability to form memories that are enduring and accessible over time.