Past research has shown that top-heaviness is a perceptual property that plays a crucial role in triggering newborns' preference toward faces. The present study examined the contribution of a second configural property, "congruency," to newborns' face preference. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that when embedded in nonfacelike stimuli,…

The present study examines coviewing of "Baby Mozart" by 6- to 18-month-old infants and their caregivers under naturalistic conditions. We had two questions. First, extending the method of Barr, Zack, Garcia, and Muentener (Infancy, 13 [2008], 30-56) to a younger population, we asked if age, prior exposure, and caregiver verbal input would predict…

This experiment investigated the impact of the path of approach of an object, from head on versus from the side, and the type of imminent contact with that object, a hit versus a miss, on young infants' perceptions of object looming. Consistent with earlier studies, we found that 4- to 5-month-old infants do indeed discriminate hits versus misses.…

Research supported largely by grant HD-02296 from the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Public Health Service.

This investigation examined whether infants display "boundary extension"--a tendency to remember more of a visual scene than was presented. Three- to 7-month-olds were familiarized with a photograph of a visual scene, and tested with wide-angle versus close-up views of the scene. Infants preferred the close-up, indicating that they perceived the…

Series of experiments indicates that young infants are more sensitive to the spatial orientation of forms than was previously thought. This report is based on a dissertation submitted to the University of Strathclyde, August, 1969, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MSc. (MH)

Fifty 4-month-old infants were habituated to one wavelength of light and then tested for recognition with the original and two new spectral lights. After short- and long-term delays with different types of retroactive interference, the results indicated that the infants' recognition memory for hue was quite resilient to interference or delay. (JMB)

A series of five experiments explore the 7-month-old infant's ability to discriminate among photos of faces. The infant's tendency to choose visual targets for inspection provides evidence of discrimination and recognition. (Author/JH)

The analysis of I-scale preference orders of 71 infants (2 to 9 months old) to four face-like stimuli suggested a common J-scale stimulus ordering for each of four age groups. Changes in I-scale frequencies were used as a measure of age-related changes in preference orders. (MS)

Reports three experiments in infant visual perception which studied the processes underlying infants' shifts of fixation from one object to another. (JMB)

Tests the hypothesis that age-related shifts in infants' visual preferences for stimuli (varying in complexity as defined by number of light-dark intersections) are due to changing attention value both within and between the inversely varying dimensions of size and number. (Author/ED)

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

Outlines a method by which observation time as measured by visual fixation on an object in the visual field can be predicted for N items viewed simultaneously in the field when the time for observing each item presented singly is known. (Author/MG)