The Development of Selective Attention Orienting is an Agent of Change in Learning and Memory Efficacy

This study examined whether the developmental transition from facilitation‐based orienting mechanisms available very early in life to selective attention orienting (e.g., inhibition of return, IOR) promotes better learning and memory in infancy. We tested a single age group (4‐month‐olds) undergoing rapid development of attention orienting mechanisms. Infants completed a spatial cueing task designed to elicit IOR, in which cat or dog category exemplars consistently appeared in either the cued or noncued locations. Infants were subsequently tested on a visual paired comparison of exemplars from these cued and noncued animal categories. As expected, infants showed either facilitation‐based orienting or the more mature IOR‐based orienting during spatial cueing/encoding. Infants who demonstrated IOR‐based orienting showed memory for both specific exemplars and broader category learning, whereas those who showed facilitation‐based orienting showed weaker evidence of learning. Attention orienting also interacted with previous pet experience, such that the number of pets at home influenced learning only when infants engaged facilitation‐based orienting during encoding. Learning in the context of IOR‐based orienting was stable regardless of pet experience, suggesting that selective attention serves as an online learning mechanism during visual exploration that is less sensitive to prior experience.