Roberta Bettoni 1,2, Luca Rinaldi 3, Martina Arioli 1,2 , Hermann Bulf 1,2, Viola Macchi Cassia 1,2 1 University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy 2 Center of Neurosciences (Neuro-MI), Milan, Italy 3 University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
When Western adults/children remember sequences of ordered items, they spontaneously generate an internal spatial template, where items are mapped on a horizontal continuum oriented according to their reading-writing habits (i.e., left-to-right). A critical question then arises as to whether the association between order and space in working memory (WM) emerges even before the acquisition of reading/writing skills. Here, we investigated whether 6-month-old infants spatially organize visual sequences in WM, and whether this is related to exposure to culturally driven directional routines in their environment. Infants (N=22) were first habituated to sequences of four shapes appearing centrally on the screen, then viewed two test trials in which the first or the last item of the sequence was presented bilaterally, and two post-test trials in which the familiar sequence was presented in alternation with a novel sequence (i.e., where the familiar shapes appeared in a novel order). Orienting responses toward the left versus right side at test and looking times to the familiar versus novel order at post-test were measured as dependent variables. Spontaneous directional behaviors produced by the caregivers were also measured during two sessions of joint reading and toy construction. Results showed that infants oriented more frequently to the left versus the right when the first item was bilaterally presented, suggesting that they perceived the association first-left as more salient than the association first-right. The magnitude of this preference was associated with the frequency of caregiver’s directional behaviors, suggesting that informal learning experience may contribute to shape order-space associations.
