Two experiments examined the effects of multimodal presentation and stimulus familiarity on auditory and visual processing. In Experiment 1, 10-month-olds were habituated to either an auditory stimulus, a visual stimulus, or an auditory-visual multimodal stimulus. Processing time was assessed during the habituation phase, and discrimination of…

In 4 studies, 7.5-month-olds used synchronized visua-lauditory correlations to separate a target speech stream when a distractor passage was presented at equal loudness. Infants succeeded in a segmentation task (using the head-turn preference procedure with video familiarization) when a video of the talker's face was synchronized with the target…

This research examined the developmental course of infants' ability to perceive affect in bimodal (audiovisual) and unimodal (auditory and visual) displays of a woman speaking. According to the intersensory redundancy hypothesis (L. E. Bahrick, R. Lickliter, & R. Flom, 2004), detection of amodal properties is facilitated in multimodal stimulation…

Three studies were designed to examine infants' bisensory responsiveness to temporally modulated stimulation by varying frequency while keeping intensity constant, by varying both frequency and intensity together, and by varying intensity while keeping temporal frequency constant. Findings indicate that sound influences visual preferences via…

Presented 9-month-old infants with slides of drawings of pigs and rabbits, and tested the relative success of two auditory accompaniments in facilitating subsequent categorization of the slides. Found that infants paid more attention to presentations when they were accompanied by sound (words or tones) rather than musical tones, and paid more…

This study was designed to test two alternate hypotheses regarding the meaning of increased lateral head movements in infants during experiments in which the mothers' voices were displaced from their faces. One interpretation is that the lateral looking responses of the infants are attributable to maturational effects on the infants' physiological…

Sixty-four infants viewed side-by-side videotapes of toy trains (in four visual conditions) and listened to sounds at increasing or decreasing amplitude designed to match one of the videos. Results suggested that five-month olds were sensitive to auditory-visual distance relations and that change in size was an important visual depth cue. (MDM)

Infants were classified as high or low in differential vocal responsiveness (DVR), and tested for degree of response to stimulation by a stranger and to stimulation by their mothers. The infants' DVR classification was related to scores on the Stanford-Binet and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. (Author/SS)

Presents nine experimental studies investigating auditory and visual discrimination in very young infants. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding habituation, cross-modal stimulation, receptive language development, and individual differences. Appendices include data on visual fixation duration and information on…

Research findings are reviewed concerning infants' abilities to discriminate parents from other social stimuli during the first 6 months of life. The term "discrimination" is used to signify the ability of infants to respond differentially to two or more social stimuli. Studies reviewed are categorized in terms of the visual, auditory,…

The ability of infants to recognize their mothers as distinct from others was investigated by presenting 6 boys and 6 girls at two age levels (5 weeks and 13 weeks) with the following six sequential stimulus conditions: (1) mother's face (MO); (2) stranger's face (SO); (3) mother's face with stranger's voice (MS); (4) stranger's face with mother's…

This study investigated at the age at which infants become able to discriminate between their mothers and females strangers, as measured by differential patterns of pauses during the infants' crying while being spoken to by their mothers and female strangers. The subjects, 14 infants ranging in age from 7 to 20 days, were fed, burped, and changed,…

Two experiments studied whether altering an auditory stimulus' rate of change affected infants' fixation of changing visual stimuli. Results demonstrated that infants exposed simultaneously to auditory and visual stimulation showed a reduced tendency to fixate on relatively more visually stimulating events. Heart rates also accelerated during…

This study investigated the response behavior of nine infants, aged 13-15 weeks, to a recurrent pattern of visual and verbal stimuli presented by their own mothers and by female strangers. The infants were presented with the following 2-minute sequence (repeated 3 times): (1) one-half minute of an unknown female leaning over the crib with a…

The development of sensory and perceptual ability in infants is an important area of infancy research. This book reflects current knowledge of perceptual development and points to some of the many questions that remain unanswered. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1, "How the Visual System Develops: Normal and Abnormal…