Accurate perception of emotional (facial) expressions is an essential social skill. It is currently debated whether emotion categorization in infancy emerges in a "broad-to-narrow" pattern and the degree to which language influences this process. We used an habituation paradigm to explore (a) whether 14- and 18-month-old infants perceive…

The Japanese language has single/geminate obstruents characterized by durational difference in closure/frication as part of the phonemic repertoire used to distinguish word meanings. We first evaluated infants' abilities to discriminate naturally uttered single/geminate obstruents (/pata/ and /patta/) using the visual habituation-dishabituation…

In a series of 3 experiments, the authors examined 6- and 8-month-old infants' capacities to detect target actions in a continuous action sequence. In Experiment 1, infants were habituated to 2 different target actions and subsequently were presented with 2 continuous action sequences that either included or did not include the familiar target…

Investigated newborns' responses to decreased sound pressure level (SPL) by means of a localized head turning habituation procedure. Findings, which demonstrated recovery of neonatal head turning to decreased SPL, were inconsistent with the selective receptor adaptation model. (RH)

Two experiments investigated whether 5-month olds would look longer at rotating "drawbridge" appearing to violate physical laws because they knew it was causally impossible. Findings indicated that infants' longer gaze at 180-degree rotations was due to simple perceptual preference for more motion, challenging Baillargeon's (1987) claim…

Two experiments examined 6-month olds' ability to categorize natural infant-directed utterances. Infants heard seven different tokens from one class of utterance (comforting, approving). Findings indicated that infants who later heard a test stimulus from the unfamiliar class showed response recovery, whereas those who heard a novel stimulus from…

Examined whether 6-month-olds expect people to behave differently toward persons and inanimate objects. Found that infants habituated to an actor talking to something hidden behind an occluder looked longer at an object, whereas infants habituated to an actor reaching and swiping looked longer at a person. No difference in looking at stimuli was…

Used event-related potentials (ERPs) and fixation duration to examine infants' responses to events. Found that ERPs, but not looking time, distinguished between familiar events presented frequently rather than infrequently, and between familiar and novel events presented infrequently. Proposed that ERPs reflected updating of working memory or…

Three experiments assessed the intersensory redundancy hypothesis in early infancy. Findings indicated that habituation to a bimodal rhythm resulted in discrimination of a novel rhythm, whereas habituation to the same rhythm presented unimodally resulted in no evidence of discrimination. Temporal synchrony between the bimodal auditory and visual…

Compared cognitive functioning of infants--at 8 and 18 months--with varying levels of prenatal cocaine exposure. Found that, with risk and polydrug exposure controlled, exposure groups did not differ at 8 months on Bayley Scales or recovery to a novel stimulus. Infants with heavy exposure or high environmental risk declined in mental development…