Calm or crying 9- and 12-week-olds sat facing a researcher who gazed into their eyes or at their forehead and delivered either a sucrose solution or pacifier or delivered nothing. Found that combining sweet taste and eye contact was necessary and sufficient for calm 9- and 12-week-olds to form a preference for the researcher, but not for crying…

The effects of maternal antenatal and postnatal anxiety and depression on infant negative behavioral reactivity were examined in a sample of 22 mother-infant pairs. Maternal anxiety and depression were assessed by standardized measures during the third trimester of pregnancy and postpartum. Infant negative behavioral responses to novelty were…

Three issues were investigated: (a) the regulatory effects of presumed infant and maternal regulation behaviors on infant distress to novelty at 6 months, (b) stability of infant regulatory effects across contexts that vary in maternal involvement, and (c) associations and temporal dynamics between infant and maternal regulation behaviors.…

Eight experiments were conducted to examine 3- and 3.5-month-old infants' responses to occlusion events. The results revealed two developments, one in infants' knowledge of when objects should and should not be occluded and the other in infants' ability to posit additional objects to make sense of events that would otherwise violate their…

This study was aimed at sorting out conflicting results in the literature concerning 2-month-olds' sensitivity to interpersonal contingency, and investigated the potential role of infants' positive emotion in contingency detection. Infants were randomly assigned to an experimental group (EG) that was presented an uninterrupted live-replay-live…

Mastery motivation, usually measured by task persistence, is often used to predict infant competence. This study attempted to clarify how a measure of persistence can be used to facilitate the prediction of competence when examining the relationship between persistence and maternal child-rearing behavior. The measure of persistence used in this…

Three groups of 12-month-old infants (10 deaf infants with hearing parents, 10 deaf infants with deaf parents, and 10 hearing infants with hearing parents) were videotaped during free play with mothers. Infant attention state was coded, identifying periods as: (1) unengaged, (2) onlooking, (3) object-attend, (4) person-attend, (5) supported joint…

This study examined the relationship between maternal stress, changes in stress, specific stressors, and social support and quality of mother-infant attachment. Life stress of 132 mothers was assessed prenatally and when the child was 13 months old. The mothers' social support and the quality of infant-mother attachment were also measured at the…

This study was designed to investigate whether depressed mothers would show a predominantly negative affect or fail to provide a positive frame of experience for their babies. Two field studies of depressed mothers and their infants were conducted. A subgroup of 13 subjects and their babies from a larger project conducted in Cambridge…

The study compared maternal and trained observer evaluations of infant temperamental characteristics, to determine how closely the ratings correspond, and to analyze the impact of maternal drug abuse habits on maternal ratings of infant temperament. In relating observer to maternal ratings of infant temperament, seven dimensions were compared:…

Prior to expressing language, infants have mastered many means for engaging in referential communication with others. This contention can be supported by reference to (1) developmental changes in the attentional structure of communication and (2) infants' use of affective expressions as they begin to master referential communication. In an effort…

The acquisition of imitative responses without reinforcement was investigated with infants by eliminating contingent reinforcement through the use of videotaped models. Twenty-nine male and female infants were randomly assigned to one of two groups, a Rhythmic Vocalization Group or a Conversation Control Group. Infants in the first group were…

This study compares the face-to-face interaction of infants with fathers to their interaction with mothers and with strangers. Five infants were videotaped in individual interaction with their mothers, fathers, and unfamiliar adults at weekly intervals from the second week until the infants were 6 months old. Infants were seated in a laboratory…

IT IS GENERALLY RECOGNIZED THAT COMPATIBILITY IN ADOPTION DEPENDS ON A SOUND EVALUATION OF THE ADOPTIVE PARENTS AND OF THE INFANT AND THAT THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD ARE SERVED BY EARLY PLACEMENT IN A PERMANENT HOME. EARLY ASSESSMENT OF THE INFANT, ON WHICH PROPER PLACEMENT IS DEPENDENT, MUST BE PRIMARILY PREDICTIVE. HOWEVER, EXISTING INFANT…

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between high risk infants' sensorimotor development and their use of intentional communications. Twenty-six 20-month-old infants, selected at birth by use of High Risk Index, were studied. At 15 months of age each infant was administered five scales from the Uzgiris-Hunt Ordinal Scales of…