This study investigated whether infants encode better the features of a briefly occluded object if its movements are specified simultaneously by vision and audition than if they are not (data collected: 2017-2019). Experiment 1 showed that 10-month-old infants (N = 39, 22 females, White-English) notice changes in the visual pattern on the object…

Purpose: This study examines object permanence development in infants with motor delays (MD) compared with infants with typical development (TD) and in relation to sitting skill. Methods: Fifty-six infants with MD (mean age = 10 months) and 36 with TD (mean age = 5.7 months) were assessed at baseline and then at 1.5, 3, and 6 months postbaseline.…

Is early reasoning about an agent's knowledge best characterized by a mentalistic stance, a teleological stance, or both? In this research, 5-month-old infants (N = 64, 50% female, 83% White) saw a novel eyeless agent consistently approach object-A as opposed to object-B. Although infants could always see both objects, a screen separated object-B…

Most language use is displaced, referring to past, future, or hypothetical events, posing the challenge of how children learn what words refer to when the referent is not physically available. One possibility is that iconic cues that imagistically evoke properties of absent referents support learning when referents are displaced. In an…

Visual attention both guides and is guided by learning and memory systems. In this article, we use a multiple-memory systems framework to examine the interplay between attention and memory that begins in early postnatal life. We review how attention and memory interact to support infant development with respect to perceptual learning about objects…

Past research has shown a discrepancy in young infants' use of height information in occlusion and containment events--a pattern typically accounted for by event categorization and rule learning. Broadening these theories, the present experiment examined the role of comparison in young infants' reasoning about physical events. We rotated a typical…

"Where Mathematics Comes From" (Lakoff & Núñez 2000) proposed that mathematical concepts such as arithmetic and counting are constructed cognitively from embodied metaphors of actions on physical objects, and four actions, or 'grounding metaphors' in particular: collecting, stepping, constructing and measuring. This article argues…

Object names are a major component of early vocabularies and learning object names depends on being able to visually recognize objects in the world. However, the fundamental visual challenge of the moment-to-moment variations in object appearances that learners must resolve has received little attention in word learning research. Here we provide…

Infants' pointing gestures are a critical predictor of early vocabulary size. However, it remains unknown precisely how pointing relates to word learning. The current study addressed this question in a sample of 108 infants, testing one mechanism by which infants' pointing may influence their learning. In Study 1, 18-month-olds, but not…

The following manuscript is a review of research surrounding best practices for language and literacy development in children birth to age three. Part 1 of the review begins with the research on language acquisition beginning in utero, continuing through infancy and onto the emergence of speech. The review discusses the importance of language…