Infants are born highly sensitive to the natural patterns found in languages. They use their perceptual sensitivity to acquire detailed information about the structure of languages in their environment. To date, most studies of infant perception and early language acquisition have investigated spoken/auditory languages and hearing infants (e.g.…

In this study examining infants' responses to optical expansion, 18 infants between 36 and 61 days old watched expanding shadows that differed in the terminal location of the center of expansion and the number of dimensions undergoing change. Babies consistently rotated their heads upward during expansion of a closed figure when the center of…

The relationship between visual stimulus intensity and directional finger movements was examined in infants of two age groups (16 infants, 10 to 15 weeks old, and 8 infants, 20 to 25 weeks old). Two hypotheses derived from Schneirla's Approach-Withdrawal Theory were examined: (1) that responses of the younger, but not of the older infants, would…

Results of this study of 72 4-month-old infants suggest caution in using an overt demonstration of habituation as a necessary index of perceptual learning. (Author/MG)

Based upon a paper presented at the American Psychological Association, Miami Beach, 1970. (Editor)

Infants at two age levels were shown six patterns which represented three levels of stimulus complexity and two types of organization, facial and nonfacial. Results agree with previous studies in suggesting a change between ages 10 and 15 weeks in dimensions which underlie infants' response to facelike patterns. (Author/HS)

Portions of this paper were read as part of a symposium on The Meaning of Smiling and Vocalizing in Infancy'' at the 1970 meeting of the American Psychological Association, Miami Beach, Florida, September, 1970. (Editor)

When an object moves behind an occluder and re-emerges, 4-month-old infants perceive trajectory continuity only when the occluder is narrow, raising the question of whether time or distance out of sight is the important constraining variable. One hundred and forty 4-month-olds were tested in five experiments aimed to disambiguate time and distance…

This research project was designed to determine whether 1-week-old neonates would indicate biological recognition of their mothers. Biological recognition is defined as the particular configuration of sensory, kinesthetic, and motor cues and the temporal patterning of these cues which characterizes infants' exchange processes with their…

This paper describes a series of longitudinal experiments which dealt with the development of object awareness in infants, ages 6-18 months. The experiments were designed to document and evaluate Piaget's account of this development. The studies focused on two types of phenomena: (1) when infants first find an object hidden in one place, they will…

An exploration of the clinical usefulness of the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Scale was made. A specific pediatric problem was studied, i.e., a baby born to a heroin-addicted mother taking methadone. The control sample was a population of 41 babies who were part of a larger study. Both methadone and control infants were tested between 48 and 72…

A report is presented which relates to a general hypothesis suggested by previous data on visual response to faces that in the first weeks of life infants develop expectations regarding the human face. Three predictions were made: (1) Silent human faces would elicit less direct regard than faces accompanied by voices; (2) A familiar face would…

An experiment was performed to show that infants perceive auditory and visual stimuli within a common space and that they perceive the sound as an attribute of the visual object. Subjects were 22 infants aged 3 to 5 months. Each infant was presented with a toy that moved in a small arc from side to side of a small window at the rate of one arc per…