Reply by Jerome Kagan to a recent article by Block, Gjerde, and Block (1986) which questions the validity of the construct of reflection-impulsivity. Kagan alleges flaws in the logic of the authors' (Block, Gjerde, Block) position and in the inferences drawn from their data. (Author/RWB)

Responds to the arguments and evidence adduced by Kagan (1987) in his reply to the Block, Gjerde, and Block (1986) study questioning the validity of the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT) as a measure of "reflection-impulsivity." (Author)

Human infants are sensitive from birth to some intrinsic properties of objects; they are also sensitive to position. During the first weeks of life, pertinent dimensions of differentiation between objects are relative to global properties of the entire object or pattern. Position is defined by the direction of a displacement: the trajectory…