The Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale with Kansas Supplement was administered to 60 newborns who were classified as extremely healthy or as having slight perinatal problems. Correlations between behavioral responding on the assessment scale and levels of plasma cortisol (obtained from blood tests) were examined. (PCB)

Results suggest that temporal summation of brief stimuli is deficient in neonates. When compared with adult data from an analogous study, results also suggest that the transient system is immature in infants and that this immaturity is expressed in different ways by startle amplitude, probability, and latency. (PCB)

Results obtained from 27 infants ranging in age from 10 to 12 weeks indicated that infants develop expectancies regarding how stimuli occurring in particular contexts should behave based on their prior experiences with these stimuli. (Author/RH)

In contrast with controls and newborn presented with static models, only newborn presented with dynamic models reproduced the models' actions at significant levels. Infants in the static condition fixated the experimenter longer than those in the dynamic one. Results are discussed in terms of neurophysiological findings concerning the control of…

Two experiments investigated the ability of 3-month-olds to acquire generalized expectancies of reward and the role of these expectancies in memory retrieval. In both experiments, infants exhibited positive transfer over invariant and variable stimulus series; however, in the second experiment, violations of either expected order produced a…

Two experiments examined changes in the search of infants aged six, seven, and eight months. Experiment 1 found that the majority of infants displayed transitional search before intentional search. Experiment 2 showed that the infants' awareness of a hidden object develops gradually. (Author/RH)

Although previous research with adult humans and nonhumans has suggested a relationship between sleep behavior and brain serotonin levels, no studies have been made of the relationship of normal children's or infants' sleep patterns to serotonin levels, tryptophan metabolism, or diet. This study investigates the relationship between dietary…

Results show that at eight months of age ability to identify the site of an event after reorientation is based on the spatial relationship between the event and environmental features. The latter include features associated with room shape as well as a landmark at the site of the event. (Author/RH)

A total of 23 infants were longitudinally studied to ascertain how kind and amount of prereaching activity changes with age during the first four months of life. Substantial changes were observed in the pattern of prereaching around two months of age. (RH)

Two experiments were conducted to test effects of infants' ability to locomote on their social and exploratory behaviors. Results indicated that walker-assisted or independent locomotion afforded similar experiences within a standard environment but experiences quite different from those of the nonlocomoting infant. (Author/RH)

Investigates the effect of target size and presence, intensity, and location of sound on the visual following of infants one and two months of age. (Author/RH)

Newborn infants showing anthropometric signs of atypical patterns of fetal growth were compared with infants of appropriate growth on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale and on recently developed supplementary items. The sample consisted of lower-socioeconomic-status families in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and included teenage and older mothers.…

Temporal stability of play behavior and its consistency among toys differing in complexity was assessed by observing 40 eight-month-old infants. The relationship of stability of play to temperament was examined. Findings support the idea that behavioral consistency in infancy is similar to that reported for older children. (RH)

Two experiments assessed the importance of form versus function in 2-year-old infants' categorizations. Nonsense objects were constructed to independently vary form and function. Adults differentially directed subjects' attention to one or the other stimulus dimension. It was hypothesized that children's conceptualizations would vary as a function…

The major purpose of this study was to examine bimodal coordination of featural stimuli in infancy. Specifically of interest was infant sensitivity to the auditory and visual combinations that characterize male and female stimulus configurations. A total of 27 male and 27 female subjects of 3, 6, and 9 months of age participated in the study.…