Four experiments investigating the effects of physical and social variables on the production of pointing in infants 10 to 18 months old are described. In the first two experiments, which were primarily concerned with the relation between reaching and index finger pointing, physical dimensions such as distance between baby and target objects were…

This study was designed to answer the following three questions: (1) Are infants' first words always context-bound when they are initially acquired? (2) Do mothers use infants' first words in a context-bound manner when interacting with their infants? (3) What relationship, if any, exists between infants' initial use of early words and mothers'…

An investigation was made of the behavioral effects of caffeine in a sample of 313 newborns and their mothers. A weighted measure of caffeine based on daily ingestion of coffee, tea, and cola was derived from a maternal interview. The majority of mothers consumed the equivalent of about 1.3 cups of coffee per day. Infant outcome measures included…

Focusing on infants' physical attractiveness and behavior, this study explores reasons some infants receive greater amounts and different types of attention from adults than do others. Subjects were observed in 21 groups of three, consisting of one adult and two same-sex infants. Adult subjects were unmarried, childless undergraduate women…

The influence of negative affect on the retrieval of information from memory during infancy was investigated in two studies through the use of an operant conditioning paradigm. The procedure used, known as "mobile conjugate reinforcement," involves a free operant task in which an infant is reinforced for footkicking by the movement of an…

In order to identify antecedents of infant's compliance with mothers' directions on how to solve four tasks (graded in terms of stressfulness to the infant), 194 high-risk mothers and their 2-year-old children were observed on videotape and assessed with a six-point rating scale. Data collected prenatally and postnatally at 3, 6, 12 and 18 months…

This study is an investigation of 2-month-old infants' abilities to visually localize visual and auditory peripheral stimuli. Each subject (N=40) was presented with 50 trials; 25 of these visual and 25 auditory. The infant was placed in a semi-upright infant seat positioned 122 cm from the center speaker of an arc formed by five loudspeakers. At…

The impact of two levels of infant organization and marital satisfaction on parent-infant interaction patterns was investigated in 25 couples. It was predicted that (1) disorganized infants would have a negative impact on the parent-infant relationship, and that (2) parent-infant interaction with disorganized infants would be more negative among…

This study examined the differential effects of sex of parent, sex of child, and sex of stranger on infant behavior in a stranger-separation situation. Year-old infants (16 males and 19 females) from middle-class families were observed and videotaped twice, at one-week intervals, in a modification of Ainsworth's laboratory stranger and separation…

This study examined father-infant and mother-infant relationships by observing infants and parents in their homes. The subjects were 20 infants, 10 boys and 10 girls, 7 and 8 months of age. Each infant was visited twice when both parents were at home. All visits were made by the same two persons: a male observer, who maintained a narrative account…

This research project was designed to determine whether 1-week-old neonates would indicate biological recognition of their mothers. Biological recognition is defined as the particular configuration of sensory, kinesthetic, and motor cues and the temporal patterning of these cues which characterizes infants' exchange processes with their…

This paper describes a series of longitudinal experiments which dealt with the development of object awareness in infants, ages 6-18 months. The experiments were designed to document and evaluate Piaget's account of this development. The studies focused on two types of phenomena: (1) when infants first find an object hidden in one place, they will…

This experiment examined developmental changes in the ability of infants to learn conceptual categories regarding the human face. A total of 108 infants, aged 18, 24, and 30 weeks, were habituated to (1) the same face in the same orientation, (2) the same face in differing orientations, or (3) different faces in different orientations. All…

This study examined the development of imitation under naturalistic conditions. Participating were 320 parents, who provided diary records of imitation by their 12-, 15-, and 18-month-old infants over a 7-day period. Approximately half of the infants were first-borns and half had older siblings. The findings indicated that infants of all ages…

This study assessed the quality of caregiver-infant feeding interaction with 3- and 9-month-old infants. Findings on several measures indicated that caregivers appear to be more vigilant to their infants' needs at three months than at nine months, although infants became clearer in their cues by nine months. Maternal personality was not related to…