ABSTRACT
The purpose of most of the chapters in this volume has been to explore the usefulness of studying the phenomena of memory development from a comparative perspective. In particular, an attempt has been made to explore commonalities that may exist between the learning and memory processes of rats and preverbal infants. Because the search for common psychological systems across different species has a long history, it is encouraging to note that current research from these two very different areas continues to support the idea that there are, indeed, a number of commonalities among the basic learning and memory processes of very different species. Perhaps this work is best summarized by Cornell (this volume) who illustrates how memorial phenomena such as reinstatement effects, spacing effects, and serial position effects, when “adjusted for the learning and response capabilities of animals and children,” demonstrate an amazing degree of phylogenetic continuity. Similarly, James Gibson's (1979) ecological view of perception has recently had a considerable influence on research in infant perceptual development, and commonalities among the ways in which both infants and nonhuman animals pickup and abstract what appear to be highly structured, existing environmental information is striking (see, for example, Ruff, in press).
