Habituation of looking time has become the standard method for studying cognitive processes in infancy. This method has a long history and derives from the study of memory and habituation itself. Often, however, it is not clear how researchers make decisions about how to implement habituation as a tool to study processes such as categorization,…

Three experiments test object permanenece in 3 1/2- and 4 1/2-month-old infants, and use an impossible-possible-habituation event format. The 4 1/2-month-olds, and the 3 1/2-month-olds who were fast habituators, look reliably longer at the impossible than at the possible event. Results seriously question Piaget's (1954) claims regarding the age at…

We directly compared chimpanzee infants and human infants for categorical representations of three global-like categories (mammals, furniture and vehicles), using the familiarization-novelty preference technique. Neither species received any training during the experiments. We used the time that participants spent looking at the stimulus object…

The present research examined alternative accounts of prior violation-of-expectation (VOE) reports that young infants can represent and reason about hidden objects. According to these accounts, young infants' apparent success in these VOE tasks reflects only novelty and familiarity preferences induced by the habituation or familiarization trials…

Observed the reactions of 3.5-month-old infants looking at a carrot that should have but did not appear in a window after passing behind a screen. The results of this and several similar experiments indicated that 3.5-month-old infants are able to represent and reason about hidden objects. (BC)

Examined perception of object unity in partial occlusion in 72 infants. Recorded how long subjects looked at a display of complete and incomplete rods. In test and control conditions, infants looked longer at broken rods than at complete rods, suggesting that infants' cognitive, visual, or attentional skills may be insufficient to support…