Data indicate that the interventions provided differed in their effectiveness in calming newborns to a highly significant degree. (Authors)

The Babkin reflex is a reaction to the simultaneous pressing of the palms of the hands of the infant. (Authors)

Forty crying and 24 sleeping 2- to 3-day-old healthy, full-term newborns were given six interventions whichentailed contact and/or vestibular stimulation. Scores obtained on a six-point scale assessing levels of alertness imply that the vestibular stimulation which attends maternal caretaking activities is crucial, at least during the neonatal…

Longitudinal data concerning fear responses in 30 boys and 30 girls observed from ages one month to 8 1/2 years suggest that in males--but not in females--a predisposition to a particular level of fearfulness is set by events that occurred before 6 months of age. (Author/MG)

Presents the procedures, results, and conclusions of two studies conducted to investigate the process of children separating from their mothers. The authors suggest that this kind of behavior has important biological and psychological consequences, among which are increased opportunities for learning and for adaptation to the environment, on the…

Premature infants vocalized less, played less, and were more fretful than full-term infants of the same chronological age, although they looked at objects and looked around their environment more. Mothers of premature infants demonstrated more caretaking and affectionate behavior toward their infants. Between-group differences decreased as age…

Develops a methodology for studying emotion socialization and examines the synchrony of mother and infant expressions to determine whether "instruction" in display rules is underway in early infancy and what the short-term effects of such instruction on infant expression might be. Sixty dyads were videotaped during play and reunion after brief…

Examined consistency of hand preference in a longitudinal study of children between 18 and 42 months of age. Results showed a sex-specific relationship between hand consistence and intellectual development. Females with consistency of handedness were precocious compared to females without such consistency; the same relationship did not hold for…

Some of the findings of a longitudinal study of three infants between their 11th and 22nd months to document development of linguistic expression of the agent concept indicated that first vocalizations were inconsistently associated with nonverbal agentive behaviors and later mature utterances coded agent-action-recipient events. (MC)

Investigated the effect of increasing familiarization time on the visual recognition memory of 6- and 12-month-old full-term and preterm infants. Results suggested that persistent differences exist between preterm and full-term infants throughout at least the first year of life in this fundamental aspect of cognition. (Author/RH)

Evaluates the degree to which the social-referencing perspective provides a valid explanation of some features of infant behavior. (MP)

An Ames static trapezoidal window was used to test infants' responsiveness to pictorial depth. Sensitivity to the pictorial information for depth that is present in the trapezoidal window appears to develop after the age of 22 weeks. (Author/DB)

Preferential looking at stimuli varying in temporal frequency was examined in 11 prematurely born infants. The relationship between amount of looking and stimulus frequency yielded a significant linear trend with the fastest frequency used (4 hertz) being most preferred. (Author/DB)

Seeks to determine (1) whether 11- and 13-month-old infants directed their eye fixations to the referent of an object word said by the mother, and (2) whether there was a developmental shift in responding to object words at these two ages. Controls were set for response bias, stimulus preference, and maternal cuing. (Author/RH)