Observers and mothers rated infant behavior in the home on dimensions of temperament once a week for eight weeks. Although week-to-week correlations were modest, aggregates of the eight observations had high reliability for both observers and mothers. When direct observations were compared with mother reports, little evidence of mother-observer…

This study of healthy 39-week-old infants, so-called term infants, and chronically stressed 42-week-old infants, so-called postmature infants, showed that sucrose was extremely effective in calming term infants but less effective in calming postmature infants. Results supported the hypothesis that sucrose engages an opioid system in infants. (BG)

Three experiments investigated whether 4-month-olds would attend to and utilize the global configuration ("good form") of a partly occluded, moving object to perceive its unit and coherence behind the occluder. Results indicated that curvature per se provided information in support of completion, in addition to global configuration and…

Examined differences in acoustic characteristics of cries, both early and late, within a prolonged crying bout. Results indicated that late cries appeared to result from a smaller number of factors than did early cries. Results support notions that crying bouts settle into a regular cry with acoustic features matching a theoretical model of cry…

Investigated 4- and 7-month-olds' perception of transparency, using computer-generated achromatic or color displays depicting a semitransparent box occluding the center of a rod. Found that 4-month-olds indicated perception of transparency in color but not in achromatic displays. Seven-month-olds showed some evidence of transparency perception in…

Used event-related potentials to novel and primed upright and inverted faces to examine evidence of repetition priming in 6-month-olds. Found that repeated faces demonstrated greater negativity than novel faces, and upright faces demonstrated greater negativity than inverted faces. Comparisons with adults tested in a similar experiment support the…

Videotapes were made of the prehensile activity and looking behavior of 2- and 5-month-old infants in the presence of objects placed within and beyond possible contact distance. (BRT)

Compares monocular depth perception with binocular depth perception in five- to seven-month-old infants. Reaching preferences (dependent measure) observed in the monocular condition indicated sensitivity to monocular depth information. Binocular viewing resulted in a far more consistent tendency to reach for the nearer object. (Author)

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…

Twenty-four mothers were trained to record emotional incidents involving their toddlers. Reports of disciplinary encounters were analyzed in terms of (1) the types of discipline used and children's responses to that discipline and (2) the relationship between compliance/noncompliance and type of misdeed. Love withdrawal was shown to be a highly…

Two parental questionnaires were developed for measurement of temperament in one- and two-year old children in Sweden. (MP)

Examined three components of the attachment-transmission model in 48 kibbutz dyads from communal and home-based sleeping arrangements. Found that security of infants' attachment relations and autonomy of mothers' attachment representations were associated with higher emotional availability scores. Poorer emotional availability was found in dyads…

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…

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…

Five experiments with 12-, 15-, and 18-month-olds examined 276 infants' ability to learn from television under semi-naturalistic conditions. Findings indicated that infants of all ages imitated live-modeled actions. There were age- and task-related differences in infants' ability to imitate the same television-modeled actions. Findings highlighted…