Four-month-old infants extract ordinal information in number-based and size-based visual sequences, provided that magnitude changes involve increasing relations. Here the ontogenetic origins of ordinal processing were investigated between 2018 and 2022 by testing newborns' discrimination of reversal in numerosity (Experiment 1, N = 22 White, 11…

Often, the evidence we observe is consistent with more than one explanation. How do learners discriminate among candidate causes? The current studies examine whether counterfactuals help 5-year olds (N = 120) select between competing hypotheses and compares the effectiveness of these prompts to a related scaffold. In Experiment 1, counterfactuals…

The ability to discriminate social signals from faces is a fundamental component of human social interactions whose developmental origins are still debated. In this study, 5-year-old (N = 29) and 7-year-old children (N = 31) and adults (N = 34) made perceptual similarity and trustworthiness judgments on a set of female faces varying in level of…

This study investigates the ability of 6-month-old infants to attend to the continuous properties of a set of discrete entities. Infants were habituated to dot arrays that were constant in cumulative surface area yet varied in number for small (less than 4) or large (greater than 3) sets. Results revealed that infants detected a 4-fold (but not…

Forty-eight four-month-old infants were tested in a habituation-dishabituation discrimination paradigm using vertically symmetrical, horizontally symmetrical, and asymetrical forms. Results suggest that babies respond to "goodness of organization" rather than to details unique to particular symmetrical patterns. (Author/RH)

Examines discrimination of geometric shapes by three-month-old infants who were presented with geometric stimuli moving laterally at two different velocities. Finds that subjects discriminate between geometric forms at velocities that, according to previous findings, might interfere with shape discrimination. Discusses the possible interactive…

Visual preference and habituation paradigms were used to investigate the ability of three-month-olds to recognize the photographed face of the mother and to discriminate it from another face. Infants discriminated between the pictures of the mother and a stranger, both in the preference test and in the recognition test after habituation.…

Behavioral responses of 3- to 4-day-old newborns to the odors of various human milk (HM) and formula milk (FM) were examined in paired-choice tests. When both stimuli were nonfamiliar, breast-fed, as well as bottle-fed, infants oriented their head and mouthed more vigorously to HM than to FM. When breast-fed infants were exposed to nonfamiliar HM…

Found that preschool children can form abstract concepts of left and right which are not bound to the specific training context: children were able to generalize to new figures and to new spatial locations. The nature of the preschool child's left-right judgments is discussed. (Author/RH)

Examined seven-month-old infants' perceptions of happy and fearful facial expressions. Infants could generalize discrimination of expressions across male and female faces if first familiarized with happy faces. Infants tended to look longer at fear faces than at happy faces. Preferential responding was not specific to any individual face.…

Three experiments investigated seven-month-old infants' ability to discriminate the facial expressions of happiness and fear. (CM)

Studied head-orientation response of breast-feeding neonates in paired-choice odor tests. Found that 2-day olds detected amniotic fluid and colostrum, treating them as similar sensorily and/or hedonically. Four-day olds exhibited a preference for breast milk. Three-day olds oriented longer toward the odor of their own amniotic fluid than alien…

When six-month-old infants are preexposed to one stimulus, they are later able to remember that stimulus and distinguish it from a previously unseen, novel stimulus; degree of experience with one stimulus and the magnitude of novelty effect positively covary. Neurological substrates of infants' memory skills are described. (RH)

Twenty-seven 4-month-old infants heard a repetitive auditory rhythm, then viewed silent film of puppet opening/closing its mouth, either in the familiar rhythm or a novel rhythm. Results showed infants exposed to the novel condition watched the film longer than infants shown the familiar condition, providing evidence for auditory-visual transfer…

Determines whether an averaged evoked potential technique using a random-v-repetitive presentation mode could be used to study infant auditory discrimination. Results showed a main effect of presentation mode with shorter latency for random v repetitive. The shortest onset latency was for random stimulus at the fast rate. (Author/DB)