Although human infants demonstrate early competence to retain visual information, memory capacities during infancy remain largely undocumented. In three experiments, we used a Visual Paired Comparison (VPC) task to examine abilities to encode identity (Experiment 1) and spatial properties (Experiments 2a and 2b) of unfamiliar complex visual…

A head-mounted camera was used to measure head direction. The camera was mounted to the forehead of 20 6- and 20 12-month-old infants while they watched an object held at 11 horizontal (-80° to + 80°) and 9 vertical (-48° to + 50°) positions. The results showed that the head always moved less than required to be on target. Below 30° in the…

How do capuchin monkeys learn to use stones to crack open nuts? Perception-action theory posits that individuals explore producing varying spatial and force relations among objects and surfaces, thereby learning about affordances of such relations and how to produce them. Such learning supports the discovery of tool use. We present longitudinal…

Clarifies issues involved in use of heart rate as index of newborn attentional responsivity by reviewing related studies and concluding that heart rate variability can be used in studying attentional responsivity state, and intra-individual and individual variables. (ED)

Findings indicate that infant boys may be more easily conditioned by visual reinforcement than are girls. (Author/MB)

Infants of one, two and three months of age were presented with two checkerboard patterns, one stationary and the other moving in a horizontal oscillatory motion at one of eight rates. Results showed reliable differences in ocular behavior as a function of rate stimulus motion for all three groups of infants. (MS)

Results demonstrate that 12 - 15 - week-old male infants smile to nonsocial stimuli, and offers support for the recognition hypothesis of infant smiling. (Authors/MB)

It was concluded that both social and vocal elements are necessary to stimulate a general increase in the number and length of consonant utterances, but there was no evidence that stimulation encouraged infants to imitate the consonant phonemes presented. (Author)

Results suggest that the human infant's response to visual stimulation undergoes change during the neonatal period. (Authors)

Study investigated whether the observed individual differences in visual pursuit endure beyond the neonatal period. (Authors/MB)

The reaching behavior of 12 infants in the presence of solid objects and pictures of objects placed within and beyond possible contact distance was videotaped in three sessions at 15, 19, and 24 weeks of age. (Author/MS)