Memory Encoding & Selective Attention
How we pay attention during learning affects what we remember. These studies show that the way attention selects or suppresses information during viewing makes a big difference for what infants and adults later remember.
Memory is enhanced when our brains suppress distractions
Ages: 9 month-olds
In this study, 9-month-old babies were shown pictures in a way that encouraged them either to suppress distracting locations or simply to look where cued. When infants’ attention suppressed distracting information while focusing on relevant items, their memory for those items was more accurate later on. In practical terms, infants form stronger memories when their visual attention cleanly filters out irrelevant input, not just when they look longer. This highlights how early selective attention supports memory formation in developing brains.
Memory is enhanced when our brains suppress distractions
Ages: 9 month-olds
In this study, 9-month-old babies were shown pictures in a way that encouraged them either to suppress distracting locations or simply to look where cued. When infants’ attention suppressed distracting information while focusing on relevant items, their memory for those items was more accurate later on. In practical terms, infants form stronger memories when their visual attention cleanly filters out irrelevant input, not just when they look longer. This highlights how early selective attention supports memory formation in developing brains.
Not all attention boosts memory; it matters how we orient ourselves to information
Ages: Young Adults
This research shows that even in adults, the type of attention process at encoding matters for what gets remembered. When attention involved active suppression of competing input (rather than simple shifting toward a target), people later had better recognition memory for the attended objects. Brain imaging and eye-tracking data suggested that this benefit arises because suppression clears out distracting neural signals, leaving a cleaner memory trace. In other words, memory encoding is stronger when attention isn’t just deployed, but when it also suppresses irrelevant information.
