Newborns' memory abilities have been shown in a number of studies. Yet little is known about whether many of the factors that are known to affect encoding, storage, and retrieval in older children and adults are also integral to memory processes at birth. Here we tested for the presence at birth of the retroactive interference and repetition…

A critical question in Cognitive Science concerns how knowledge of specific domains emerges during development. Here we examined how limitations of the visual system during the first days of life may shape subsequent development of face processing abilities. By manipulating the bands of spatial frequencies of face images, we investigated what is…

The present research investigates newborn infants' perceptions of the shape and texture of objects through studies of the bi-directionality of cross-modal transfer between vision and touch. Using an intersensory procedure, four experiments were performed in newborns to study their ability to transfer shape and texture information from vision to…

Despite decades of studies of human infants, a still open question concerns the role of visual experience in the development of the ability to perceive complete shapes over partial occlusion. Previous studies show that newborns fail to manifest this ability, either because they lack the visual experience required for perceptual completion or…

The current study provides evidence for the existence of an other-age effect (OAE), analogous to the well-documented other-race effect. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that adults are better at recognizing adult faces compared with faces of newborns and children. Results from Experiment 3 indicate that the OAE obtained with child faces can be…

Experiments investigated whether more elements in the upper part of a visual configuration influenced newborns' preference for face-like patterns. Findings indicated that newborns preferred nonface-like stimuli with more upper part elements over nonface-like stimuli with more lower elements, but did not prefer face-like over nonface-like stimuli…

In these two studies, neonatal oculomotor behavior was observed under various conditions of visual and auditory stimulation. Findings showed auditory and visual perception to be relatively independent during the neonatal period. (Author/JMB)

Evaluates infants less than 1 week of age in a habituation-recovery paradigm for evidence of ability to detect an invariant identity or nonidentity relationship between components of a visual stimulus. (Author/NH)

The capacity of newborn infants for smooth-pursuit eye movements in single-target tracking and in optokinetic nystagmus to a moving striped field was examined utilizing DC electrooculography. (JMB)

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)

This paper discusses recent studies of the adult visual evoked potential (VEP) which have indicated that specific components of the complex waveform obtained are related to the three basic color processes, and that these components interact in ways that seem to agree with opponent-colors phenomena. The components identified as being related to the…

Examines the ability of infants ranging in age from 21 to 44 hours old to discriminate among visual stimulus arrays. Infants were able to discriminate between small sets of dots (two to three dots) but not between larger sets (four to six). (Author/MP)

This study explored whether the reported inability of newborns to perceive object unity could result from the limited abilities of newborns to recognize the correspondence between 2 stimuli that were identical except for the presence or absence of an occluder. Five experiments were carried out using a visual habituation technique. The results of…

The effects of posture on the visual behavior of 15 3-day-old healthy, black, newborn infants were assessed. Findings suggest that the vestibular, proprioceptive, and contact stimulation provided by the on-shoulder position affects the newborn's ability to follow and process visual stimuli. (Author/CS)

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