This study examined individual differences in spatial memory performance in 12-month-old infants using brain electrical activity and walking experience. Greenough's experience-expectant and experience-dependent model of development was used to examine EEG power values among infants with different levels of walking experience (non-walkers, novice, experienced). In accordance with this model, a trend was shown for novice walkers to have higher EEG power values than both non-walkers and experienced walkers only in the central region. Walkers were also found to score higher on an object retrieval (OR) spatial memory task than non-walkers, with amount of walking experience being inconsequential. In addition, infants who scored higher on the OR spatial memory task showed a trend for higher EEG power values in medial frontal, central and parietal areas than infants scoring lower on the OR task. This was not the case for the manual search spatial memory task (AB). There was no interaction among spatial memory performance, walking experience and brain electrical activity. The utility of OR as a spatial memory task that requires the integration of relevant perceptual-motor integration is discussed. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/9922 |
| Date | 21 May 2004 |
| Creators | Adkins, Denise Rene |
| Contributors | Psychology, Bell, Martha Ann, Cooper, Robin K. Panneton, Harrison, David W. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | thesis2.pdf |
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