General to specific development of movement patterns and memory for contingency between actions and events in young infants

To understand infants’ learning of the contingency between their actions and events, we studied inter-limb movement patterns of 48 infants aged 2–4 months when they attempted moving a mobile using a string attached to their arm. The session was composed of baseline, acquisition, immediate retention test, re-acquisition, interference, and delayed retention test periods. The analysis revealed motor pattern dependence on age—infants exhibited increased movement over base line of all limbs (2-month-olds), both arms (3-month-olds), and the connected arm (4-month-olds). The acquired patterns were produced during immediate and delayed test periods across age groups. The results suggest that 2-month-olds can acquire and retain general body movements that induce contingent changes in a mobile, while 3- and 4-month-olds form memories that serve as a constraint enabling highly specific movement of their arm to effectively activate the mobile.