Two experiments examined 8-month-olds' use of absolute and relative pitch cues in a tone-sequence statistical learning task. Results suggest that, given unsegmented stimuli that do not conform to rules of musical composition, infants are more likely to track patterns of absolute pitches than of relative pitches. A third experiment found that adult…

Four-month-old infants from Boston, Dublin, and Beijing were administered the same battery of visual, auditory, and olfactory stimuli. The Chinese infants were significantly less active, irritable, and vocal than the Boston and Dublin samples, with American infants showing the highest level of reactivity. (Author)

Examined the effect of functional values of stimuli on orienting response elicitation. Subjects were 50 4-month-old infants and were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental conditions. Results suggested the importance of taking into account the functional value of stimuli when analyzing infant attention. (MOK)

Examined whether 6-month-olds expect people to behave differently toward persons and inanimate objects. Found that infants habituated to an actor talking to something hidden behind an occluder looked longer at an object, whereas infants habituated to an actor reaching and swiping looked longer at a person. No difference in looking at stimuli was…

Examined representation of pictorial exemplars of humans by 3- and 4-month olds. Results demonstrated an asymmetry regarding the exclusivity of categorical representations formed for humans and non-human animals. Categorical representations for humans included exemplar information, whereas categorical representation for non-human animals was based…

Assessed the role of maternal affect mirroring on development of prosocial behaviors and social expectancies in 2- to 3-month-olds. Found that infants whose mothers ranked high on affect mirroring (attention maintenance, sensitivity, responsiveness) ranked high on prosocial behaviors and social expectancy, whereas infants whose mothers ranked low…

Examined infants' emotionality, inside and outside of the relationship with the mother, and mothers' responsiveness as predictors of reunion behaviors in the Strange Situation. Found that children's separation distress mediated influence of predictors and itself predicted reunion behaviors. When distress was controlled, some responses generally…

Presents information on caring for infants in a child care setting. Suggestions include responding quickly to crying, setting the schedule to baby's pace, talking to the baby, using proper hand-washing procedures, checking the room daily for safety, going outdoors every day, and building partnerships with parents. Includes a sample form for…

Investigated whether individual and developmental differences in look duration were correlated with latency to disengage fixation from a visual stimulus for 3- and 4-month olds. Found that look duration was correlated with disengagement latency. Three-month olds showed slower latencies than 4-month olds. Long-looking infants showed greater…

Two experiments examined whether associating an imitation task with an operant task affected 6-month-olds' memory for either task. Results indicated that infants successfully imitated a puppet's action for up to 2 weeks only if the associated operant task (pressing a lever to activate a miniature train) was retrieved first. Follow-up study…

Infants' abilities to identify objects based on their perceptual features develop gradually during the first year and possibly beyond. Earlier we reported [Kaldy, Z., & Leslie, A. M. (2003). Identification of objects in 9-month-old infants: Integrating "what" and "where" information. Developmental Science, 6, 360-373] that infants at 9 months of…

Weekly observations documented developmental changes in mother-infant face-to-face communication between birth and 3 months. Developmental trajectories for each dyad of the duration of infant facial expressions showed a change from the dominance of Simple Attention (without other emotion expressions) to active and emotionally positive forms of…

Developing secure attachments with babies gives them a very special gift--the foundation for good infant mental health! In this article, the author discusses how to develop secure attachments with babies. Babies who are in the care of others during the day often suffer from separations from their special adults. Thirteen "tips" to ensure that…

According to attachment theory, the quality of care plays a key role in the organization of infants' secure base behavior across contexts and cultures. Yet information about attachment relationships in a variety of cultures is scarce, and questions remain as to whether Ainsworth's conceptualization of early care quality (sensitivity; M. D. S.…

Fourteen-month-old infants saw an object hidden inside a container and were removed from the disappearance locale for 24 hr. Upon their return, they searched correctly for the hidden object, demonstrating object permanence and long-term memory. Control infants who saw no disappearance did not search. In Experiment 2, infants returned to see the…