Two experiments demonstrated that 11-month olds can encode novel causal events from a brief period of observational learning and recall much of the information after 24 hours and after 3 months. The infants remembered more individual actions than whole sequences, but reproduced many of the events in their entirety after the long delay. (MDM)

Compared subjects' judgments about emotions expressed by the faces of infants pictured in slides to predictions made by the Max system of measuring emotional expression. Judgments did not coincide with Max predictions for fear, anger, sadness, and disgust. Results indicated that expressions of negative affect by infants are not fully…

College students listened to recordings of infant cries that varied in the duration of crying sounds and of pauses between crying sounds. Results indicated that the shorter the duration of the pause the more informative, arousing, and aversive was the cry in the judgment of the students. (BC)

Results of 3 experiments indicated that 12 month olds, but not 8 and 10 month olds, looked longer at objects of a different shape from test objects than at the test objects. Twelve month olds recognized rectilinear, but not curvilinear, forms. They recognized differences in forms for three-dimensional, but not two-dimensional, objects. (BC)

Examined mothers' feelings about combining motherhood, employment, and child care during their firstborns' infancy and quality of mother-infant interactions. From analysis of interviews, questionnaires, and observations involving 37 mothers, developed typology of 4 categories of mothers (Enamored, Managers, Distressed, Disengaged). Found complex…

Infants were trained to respond to vowel alterations. A total of 80 percent of the 2-, 3-, and 6-month-old infants in the sample did not respond when there was a change of pitch or speaker but no vowel change. The study established the feasibility of the observer-based psychoacoustic procedure. (BC)

Reviews studies on the effects of infant food supplementation on the children's later cognitive development. Suggests that the study by Pollitt et al. reported in this monograph presents evidence that correcting early malnutrition provides large benefits to children when they become adolescents and young adults. (BC)

Results of three experiments support the conclusion that tasks involving the localization of objects or events from mirror images are not direct indices of self-recognition among children between 14 and 22 months of age. Rather, they indicate the skill of infants in using the mirror as a perceptual tool. (RH)

Auditory evoked responses (AER) of 14 infants were recorded by means of scalp electrodes positioned over frontal, temporal, and parietal regions of each hemisphere before and after training in which nonsense bisyllables were used to name novel objects. Changes in two portions of AER waveforms were found to occur when a name was correctly paired…

Evaluated an age-paced child-rearing newsletter provided to parents (n=297) of infants. Respondents rated the newsletter as more useful than other sources of child-rearing information, including physicians and nurses, relatives, and other printed materials. In 70 percent of households, two or more people read the newsletter. (ABL)

Investigated relationship between level of socialization for parenthood among primiparous married couples (n=454) and indicators of personal, family, and infant well-being. Results indicated when social support, life events, childhood experience, health, education, and income were held constant the level of socialization predicted personal and…

Twice during the neonatal period, the behavioral organization of 42 newborns was assessed by the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS), and the newborns' cortisol response to the NBAS procedure was determined. Newborns with low orientation showed a higher increase in cortisol during the NABS than newborns with high orientation. (MDM)

Examined the behavior of 8.5-month-old crawling infants and 14-month-old walking toddlers in ascending and descending sloping walkways. Both groups overestimated their ability to ascend slopes. Toddlers hesitated most before descending 10 and 20 degree slopes, whereas infants hesitated most before descending 30 and 40 degree slopes. (MDM)

Observed the play of 56 dyads of infants who were unfamiliar with each other. Infants were paired according to their ability to recognize themselves in a mirror. Synchronic imitation, or playing with the same toy in similar ways, occurred in nearly all dyads whose members recognized themselves. (BC)

Examined attachment relationships in infant-mother dyads. Dyads that were developing secure attachments interacted in a mutually rewarding manner. Among dyads developing insecure relationships, avoidant dyads were characterized by maternal intrusiveness, and resistant dyads by interactions in which mothers were underinvolved and inconsistent. (BC)