To investigate the nature of young infants' social competence, the effect of depressed maternal expression during face-to-face interaction was examined. An experimental analogue of maternal depression was employed. Subjects were 12 female and 12 male infants, ages 96 to 110 days, and their mothers. (Author/RH)

Regardless of birthweight, ventilated infants received the lowest ratings for overall performance on the Infant Behavior Record. Ventilated newborns of very low birthweight were more likely to receive ratings characterizing an overly active infant with a short attention span, and never-ventilated infants of very low birthweight were most likely to…

Investigates intersensory interaction between auditory and visual stimulation in newborn infants. Following auditory stimulation, newborns' visual preferences for light patches of different intensity were examined. Results indicate that newborns attend to quantitative variations in stimulation and that these variations reflect both the objective…

This longitudinal study (1) replicated research findings that there is a sex difference in the relationship between early mother responsiveness to children's requests for attention and later assessments of children's agentic behavior, and (2) reassessed differences in maternal responsiveness to boys versus girls. (Author/DB)

Analyses were made of the pattern and frequency of mothers' visits to the intensive care nursery for premature infants. Visiting was found to be uncorrelated with medical, socioeconomic, or demographic variables, but was apparently related to significantly higher state levels achieved by infants who received a program of early stimulation.…

Two experiments examined six-month-olds' ability to form an abstract containment category. Results indicated that, after habituation to object pairs in a containment relation, infants looked reliably longer at an example of an unfamiliar versus familiar containment relation, indicating that they could form a categorical representation of…

While infants investigated a novel toy, their mothers made either facial or vocal expressions that were neutral, happy, or fearful. Results indicated that infants in the fearful-vocal condition looked at their mothers longer, showed less toy proximity, and showed more negative affect than infants in the neutral-vocal condition. Happy-vocal signals…

Evaluated the extent to which infants' expressive modalities of face, gaze, voice, gesture, and posture form coherent affective configurations and whether these modalities are related to specific interactive contexts. Found four distinct affective configurations: social engagement, object engagement, passive withdrawal, and active protest. (MDM)

Examined whether young infants produced differentially organized hand and arm actions in relation to affective expressions when the infants were presented with social and nonsocial stimuli. (PCB)

Attempted to replicate findings of a previous study which found that mother-toddler interaction during problem solving was related to the child's prior attachment security. Examined the relationship between problem-solving interactions on the one hand, and mother-child interactions at home and infant temperament on the other. (PCB)

Analyzed vocalizations/verbalizations from children acquiring English or French in later single-word period to identify trochaic bias. Found that neither language's vocalizations were exclusively trochaic. French/English differences in iambic productions and acoustic realization of accent were traceable to adult input. Distribution of trochaic and…

Three experiments examined the relation between language acquisition and other symbolic abilities in 18- and 26-month-olds. Found that 18-month-olds spontaneously interpreted gestures, like words, as names for object categories. At 26 months, they spontaneously interpreted words as names and novel gestures as names only when given additional…

Examined whether putative regulatory behaviors widely assumed to be conceptually associated with certain behavioral strategies were associated with the changes in fearful and angry distress in 6-, 12-, and 18-month-olds. The key finding was that the use of some putative regulatory behaviors (distraction and approach) reduced the observable…

Compared disyllabic sequences from infants and adults according to their use of frequency, intensity, and duration to mark stress. Concluded that infants in English language environments produce adult-like stress patterns before they produce lexical items, which specify stress. Acoustic and perceptual analyses indicated infants use three acoustic…

Tested 90 infants in the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) with both parents. Found that mothers' Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) scores predicted infant-mother SSPs and fathers' AAIs predicted infant-father SSPs. Counter to expectation, infant-father SSPs were associated with infant-mother SSPs, which might be explained by the influence of…