This study was aimed at investigating the face preference phenomenon and its underlying mechanisms at 3 months of age. Using an eye-tracker apparatus, Experiment 1 demonstrated that 3-month-olds prefer natural face images to unnatural ones, replicating and extending previous evidence obtained with schematic facelike stimuli. Experiments 2 and 3…

The device described is a system to indicate left-to-right head position. It is limited to indicating relative left-right movements without vertical or up-down discrimination. Although developed for newborns, the system can be applied to older subjects by using a holding device for the infant. (JH)

Results suggest that temporal summation of brief stimuli is deficient in neonates. When compared with adult data from an analogous study, results also suggest that the transient system is immature in infants and that this immaturity is expressed in different ways by startle amplitude, probability, and latency. (PCB)

The temporal organization of neonatal nutritive sucking and heart rate were studied in two consecutive 4-minute periods to analyze the effects of two quantities of response-contingent fluid. Results are discussed in relation to the distinction between nutritive and nonnutritive sucking and effects of fluid sweetness. (Author/SB)

Using signal detectability theory, analysis was performed on auditory frequency sensitivity data obtained by Hutt et al, 1968, on human neonates. Reanalysis using 12 male infants confirms superiority of lower frequencies and square waves in provoking startles in neonates. No state of arousal effects were found on sensitivity. (JH)

Tests newborns' ability to detect a dot with central vision and compares both the proportion of time the infants fixated centrally and the duration of each central fixation. Subjects were 46 newborns ranging in age from 1 to 7 days. (MP)

First, newborns' preferential looking between pairs of stimuli which varied in real size and viewing distance was solely determined by retinal size. Second, newborns desensitized to changes in distance and retinal size strongly preferred an object of a different size to the familiar one. (RH)

We investigated newborns' sensitivity to the direction of gaze of another's face by using a preferential looking technique. This study extends earlier work on a preference for faces with direct gaze in newborns. In Experiment 1, we replicate the basic finding of Farroni and colleagues that newborns prefer to look at faces with direct gaze. In…

Two experiments assessed the extent of newborns' ability to discriminate color. Results imply that newborns have some, albeit limited, capacity to discriminate chromatic from achromatic stimuli, and hence, are at least dichromats. (Author/DR)

Five experiments using identical reflex modification procedures on neonates and adults suggest developmental differences in processing auditory stimuli. Neonates failed to exhibit reflex inhibition by either prior acoustic or tactile stimuli. Adults exhibited robust reflex inhibition to these same stimuli. Developmental processes implied by these…

To determine whether heart rate increase can be attributed to increased sucking amplitude for sweeter fluids, sucking and heart rate of 20 full-term infants were studied. (MP)

Examined newborns' visual detection of peripheral and central stimuli. (BD)

Data suggest that human newborns are capable of making a chromatic discrimination within the spectral region above 540 nm (the Rayleigh region), but their ability is limited to chromatic stimuli of very wide spectral separation and of very large size. Possible neurological bases underlying this immaturity are discussed. (RH)

Three experiments examined whether newborns are sensitive to an operant-conditioning task involving unprepared relation between a response and a stimuli. Found that newborns tested under the High-Amplitude Sucking procedure were involved in an operant-learning situation, in that an increase in sucking rates could be obtained after an auditory…