The ability of 2-year-olds to carry out a forward search strategy was examined in a study of performance on platform rotation problems. One group of children was tested successively on two analogous versions of a task. The two versions shared the same underlying principle but had different surface characteristics. A control group was given an…

This study was designed to determine whether infants actually play with crib toys, and whether the toys affect the duration or onset of sleep. (CS)

Reports a semilongitudinal study which measured the respiratory activity during crying of 10 normal infants aged two days to eight months. (BD/BR)

Time sampled observations of non-elicited behaviors, obtained for several hundred newborn babies were used to determine (1) whether specific motor patterns are state linked in the manner of spontaneous behaviors; (2) whether certain behaviors appear with greater frequency preprandially; and (3) whether associations between behaviors and states are…

This investigation challenged the causal relationship implicit in the search for behavioral predictors in infancy of later intellectual ability and demonstrated the primacy of infant mental scale scores in the causation of later, more concrete physical behaviors. (Author/JMB)

An infant control habituation-recovery procedure was used to study 3-month-old infants' discrimination of sad, happy, and surprise facial expressions. (Author/JMB)

A comparison was made of the behaviors of 64 12-month-old infants in situations where adult female strangers played either an active or a passive role. (Author/JMB)

Newborn infants showing anthropometric signs of atypical patterns of fetal growth were compared with infants of appropriate growth on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale and on recently developed supplementary items. The sample consisted of lower-socioeconomic-status families in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and included teenage and older mothers.…

Temporal stability of play behavior and its consistency among toys differing in complexity was assessed by observing 40 eight-month-old infants. The relationship of stability of play to temperament was examined. Findings support the idea that behavioral consistency in infancy is similar to that reported for older children. (RH)

Two experiments assessed the importance of form versus function in 2-year-old infants' categorizations. Nonsense objects were constructed to independently vary form and function. Adults differentially directed subjects' attention to one or the other stimulus dimension. It was hypothesized that children's conceptualizations would vary as a function…

Proposes, as an alternative to Sokolovian models, a model of early habituation based on selective adaptation of feature detectors. The model suggests that early habituation is attributable to the organization and immaturity of the young infant's visual system. (RH)

Investigated changes in non-nutritive sucking behavior of premature infants when light stimulation was presented. Results generally support past evidence that premature infants are capable of making orienting and discriminative responses to visual stimuli and chronological age effects were indicated. (DP)