This paper was presented by the senior author at the Merrill-Palmer Institute Conference on Research and Teaching of Infant Development, February 13-15, 1969. (MH)

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)

Forty infants, 10 at 4, 6, 8, and 10 months, were confronted by an experimenter who acted out angry, happy, sad, and neutral facial experssions, accompanied with appropriate vocalizations. The infants' responses were recorded on video tape and rated for attention, negative and positive affect, and activity. Results indicate that the 4-month old…

This study uses a habituation paradigm to systematically investigate the discrepancy hypothesis with male and female new borns. In addition, multiple visual response measures are used in monitoring the habituation process and the infant's response to various degrees of novelty. Ss were 36 apparently normal newborns (half of each sex) ranging in…

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…

Visual fixation on one of two blank targets was reinforced with either visual or auditory stimuli in one of 3 intensity sequences: (1) low, medium, high; (2) medium, high, low; and (3) high, low, medium. An analysis of variance of learning scores for the 48 14-week-old infants resulted in a significant interaction of intensity and order and in a…

INFANT SCRIBBLING ACTIVITY IS NOT SIMPLY PLAY. IT CONTRIBUTES TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL ATTENTION AND PERCEPTION. YET, SCRIBBLING, UNLIKE WRITING IN THE COMMUNICATION SENSE, IS NOT MOTIVATED BY THE DESIRE TO INFORM, NOR TO SET DOWN THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. THE EXPERIMENTAL HYPOTHESIS OF THIS STUDY WAS THAT THE MOTIVATIONS FOR SCRIBBLING ARE (1)…

Infants in four age groups--three, six, nine and twelve months--were exposed to an experimental procedure designed to assess the extent to which such subjects were capable of discriminating between different orientations of the same form, and the extent to which they were capable of recognizing the identity between different orientations of the…

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…