Examining Infants' Visual Paired Comparison Performance in the US and Rural Malawi

Overview

Journal Dev Sci

Specialty Psychology

Date 2023 Sep 1

PMID 37653622

Authors

Aaron G Beckner

Charles D Arnold

Megan G Bragg

Bess L Caswell

Zhijun Chen

Katherine Cox

Michaela C DeBolt

Matthews George

Kenneth Maleta

Christine Stewart

Lisa M Oakes

Elizabeth Prado

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Measures of attention and memory were evaluated in 6- to 9-month-old infants from two diverse contexts. One sample consisted of African infants residing in rural Malawi (N = 228, 118 girls, 110 boys). The other sample consisted of racially diverse infants residing in suburban California (N = 48, 24 girls, 24 boys). Infants were tested in an eye-tracking version of the visual paired comparison procedure and were shown racially familiar faces. The eye tracking data were parsed into individual looks, revealing that both groups of infants showed significant memory performance. However, how a look was operationally defined impacted some-but not other-measures of infant VPC performance. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: In both the US and Malawi, 6- to 9-month-old infants showed evidence of memory for faces they had previously viewed during a familiarization period. Infant age was associated with peak look duration and memory performance in both contexts. Different operational definitions of a look yielded consistent findings for peak look duration and novelty preference scores-but not shift rate. Operationalization of look-defined measures is an important consideration for studies of infants in different cultural contexts.

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