From birth, infants detect associations between the locations of static visual objects and sounds they emit, but there is limited evidence regarding their sensitivity to the dynamic equivalent when a sound-emitting object moves. In 4 experiments involving thirty-six 2-month-olds, forty-eight 5-month-olds, and forty-eight 8-month-olds, we…

To investigate sensory dominance in early development, a series of studies examined six-month-old infants' processing of multisensory stimulus compounds. Findings indicated that infants discriminated changes in the temporal characteristics of the auditory component but not in the visual component. This and other findings suggested that auditory…

Involving 10-month-old infants, a series of studies examined responses to temporally modulated compound auditory-visual stimuli. Findings indicated that, although the auditory modality can dominate the visual modality at 10 months of age, the visual modality can process temporal information when the temporal relationship of the information in the…

Tested the ability of 3.5-month-old infants to detect audiovisual relations. Results demonstrated infants' visual recovery to changes in temporal synchrony of sight and sound and in composition of objects. Infants did not demonstrate visual recovery to changes in the relationship between pitch and color or shape. (BC)

Assessed development of infants' sensitivity to two nested amodal temporal relations in audible and visible events. Found that sensitivity to synchrony was present by 4 weeks, remaining stable across age. Sensitivity to composition emerged by 7 weeks, increasing dramatically with age. Noted pattern of increasing specificity in perception…

Three experiments investigated 4-, 6-, and 8-month-olds' perception of the audible, visible, and combined attributes of bimodally specified syllables. Results suggested that at 4 months, infants attended primarily to the featural information, at 6 months primarily to the asynchrony, and at 8 months to both features independently. (Author/KB)

It has been 20 years since Bever's (1982) and Strauss and Stavy's (1982) books on U-shaped functions in human development were published. The three target articles in this issue describe several old and new U-shaped functions and new theoretical explanations for their existence. In this article, the authors will comment on two aspects of U-shaped…