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DO INFANTS KNOW WHEN THEY ARE SEARCHING INCORRECTLY? - LOOKING TIMES IN A NON-SEARCH A NOT B TASK.

AYESHA AHMED, TED RUFFMAN

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX, FALMER, BRIGHTON, BNl 9QG, UK.

Performance on the AB se_arch task has been linked to maturation of the prefrontal cortex, suggesting that the AB error may occur because infants cannot inhibit repetition of a previously correct manual response. Two experiments are reported, in which 24 infants aged 8-12 months were tested on non-search AR tasks, following the violation-of- expectation paradigm. Looking times at impossible and possible events were recorded. Results show significantly longer looking times at impossible events, indicating memory for where the object was hidden and therefore knowledge of where th_e object should be found. This effect occurred at delays at which the infants made the AB error when allowed to search, (mean 4.64 seconds in this study), and also after a much longer delay of 15 seconds. It is con_cluded that memory difficulties are eliminated when manual search is not required. The AB error may therefore be due to interference from a previous manual response.