Ninety-three pregnant women were recruited to assess fetal learning and memory, based on habituation to repeated vibroacoustic stimulation of fetuses of 30-38 weeks gestational age (GA). Each habituation test was repeated 10 min later to estimate the fetal short-term memory. For Groups 30-36, both measurements were replicated in a second session…

Findings confirmed that newborns turn toward laterally presented sounds, habituate with repetition, recover to novel sounds, and extend demonstrations of recovery to discrepant stimuli. Recovery was found to be a curvilinear function of degree of discrepancy. Newborns systematically turned away from redundant stimuli. (RH)

Reports on three experiments that assessed the attentional responses of 4-month-old infants to frequency-modulated sweeps corresponding to the frequency range of adult-to-infant and adult-to-adult intonational patterns. (HOD)