| Previous research has shown that infants' visual working memory (WM) capacity for objects appears to increase over the first year of life, from one object at 6 months to three objects at 12 months (Ross-Sheehy, Oakes, & Luck, 2003; Leslie & Kaldy, 2007). However, other evidence suggests that infants are able to keep track of multiple objects, without necessarily any identifying information, and that this object-tracking capacity does not seem to change over the first year of life (Feigenson, Carey, & Hauser, 2002; Feigenson & Carey, 2003). This apparent contradiction in findings prompted us to attempt to tease apart WM for individuated objects and for object identities (features) in infants. Our research indicates that infants, like adults, have a fixed number of slots in which to store objects, but the amount of resources available for encoding identifying featural information increases over the first year of life, resulting in an increase in the resolution of WM representations. |
