Examining infants' visual paired comparison performance in the US and rural Malawi

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.

Automated summary

This study evaluated attention and memory measures in 6- to 9-month-old infants from two different contexts. One group consisted of African infants in rural Malawi, while the other group consisted of racially diverse infants in suburban California. The infants were tested using eye tracking and showed significant memory performance, although the operational definition of a "look" impacted some, but not all, measures of infant performance.