爬行与婴儿共同注意能力的发展

本研究考察了８～１１个月婴儿共同注意能力的发展趋势以及爬行与其发展的关系。结果表明：１）一岁以内的婴儿在共同注意时有仅跟视相同方向与准确定位他人注视点两种不同水平的表现,这两种表现具有不同的发展趋势;２）影响婴儿共同注意时仅跟视相同方向水平发展的主要因素是婴儿的年龄,爬行时间的效应不显著;３）对婴儿准确定位的发展而言,影响其发展的重要因素是婴儿的爬行而不是婴儿的年龄。     

婴儿问题解决行为的特点与发展

采用标准化的实验室测验法 ,考察了 8～ 11个月婴儿问题解决过程中的行为表现与策略特点、注意力集中水平及其与问题解决成效的关系。结果表明 :(1)在问题解决过程中 ,婴儿的尝试行为及方法的有效性水平都呈逐步上升的趋势。在初次面临问题情境时 ,所有 8个月组婴儿不能有效解决问题 ,但到 11个月时 ,6 1 5 %的婴儿已能正确解决问题 ;(2 )在问题解决过程中 ,婴儿的注意力集中水平在 8～ 11个月间显著提高 ;(3)婴儿注意集中水平与其解决问题的成效显著相关。     

9-26个月婴儿上位、基本和下位水平类别学习的发展顺序

该研究探索了9-26个月婴儿在上位水平类别、基本水平类别和下位水平类别的发展顺序。采用触摸屏式的序列触摸任务,36名婴儿参加实验,分9-14月、15-20月、21-26月三个年龄组。以平均序列长度作为组分析的因变量指标,以Dixon等（1998;2007）开发的Touchstat V3.0软件统计的归类者概率作为个别分析的因变量指标,结果表明,9-14个月、15-20个月和21-26个月三个年龄组的婴儿,都能显著地区分基本水平的类别;15-20个月和21-26个月婴儿,能够显著区分上位水平的类别;21-26个月的婴儿,能够区分下位水平的类别,说明了婴儿不同类别水平概念的学习,是按照基本水平（L2）,然后上位水平（L1）,最后才是下位水平（L3）的顺序发展的,即L2→L1→L3。     

8-10个月婴儿社会情绪行为特点的研究

本研究对8～10个月婴儿的母亲进行实验室结构访谈,考察了婴儿社会情绪行为发展的年龄特点和性别差异。结果表明:(1)8-10个月婴儿已经出现多种性质、较复杂的社会情绪行为,并且在频率上随年龄变化而增加;负性情绪行为的增长相对较明显,婴儿违反规定和分离焦虑行为在第九个月显著增多。(2)在8-10个月的婴儿中,具有不同社会情绪行为特征的婴儿的年龄分布具有显著差异,表现出较强负性情绪行为的婴儿在第九个月中显著增多。(3)8-10个月婴儿的社会情绪行为表现没有显著性别差异,但婴儿的社会情绪行为的发展趋势存在显著性别差异,男婴在分离焦虑、执拗表现频率的增加上高于女婴。     

婴儿客体永久性发展机制的研究

客体永久性是婴儿早期发展中一项重要的心理能力,本研究以２０８名８－１１个月的婴儿为被试,采用实验法和访谈法探讨了婴儿客体永久性的发展机制及其发展趋势问题。结果表明：１）我国婴儿的爬行与其客体永久性的发展无直接关系,支持了爬行对婴儿客体永久性发展的作用可能来自爬行经验而不是爬行动作的假设：２）我国婴儿的客体永久性随年龄增长而持续发展,提示爬行并不是客体永久性发展的唯一途径,爬行不能发挥作用时,婴儿的客体永久性可以通过其它途径得到发展;３）在８－１１个月间,我国婴儿的客体永久性达到了阶段Ⅳ水平,８个月的婴儿已经具备了初步的客体永久性。从发展速度来看,婴儿的客体永久性在８、９个月间发展较为迅速,出现了显著的发展性变化,在９－１１个月间没有显著的差异。     

8─11个月婴儿迂回行为发展特点与学习能力的研究

采用程序标准化的婴儿迂回行为测验,探讨了２４４名８─１１个月婴儿的迂回行为发展特点及学习能力。结果表明：（１）８─１１个月婴儿的迂回行为水平表现出随婴儿月龄的增长而提高的趋势。（２）８─１１个月的婴儿具有从反复尝试中学会迂回行为的可能性,其中９、１０个月婴儿的学习可能性较大,而８个月婴儿的学习可能性较小。（３）８──１１个月婴儿的学习速度随月龄增大而提高     

出生季节与婴儿爬行动作的发展

本研究以178名足月、顺产、健康、年龄在8-11个月之间的婴儿及其母亲为研究对象,运用实验室评价与访谈方法,对出生季节与婴儿爬行动作发展的关系问题进行了研究.研究结果发现:(1)出生季节对婴儿爬行动作的发展具有重要影响.随婴儿出生季节的不同,其爬行起始年龄存在显着的差异,冬季出生的婴儿较之于其他三个季节出生的婴儿其爬行起始年龄提前约2-4周;(2)婴儿在可能开始爬行阶段的气温与其实际爬行起始年龄间存在较密切的联系.随婴儿在平均爬行起始年龄前三个月平均气温的不同,婴儿的爬行起始年龄呈现出显着的差异,二者表现为显着的负相关关系.据此,本研究对可能影响婴儿爬行动作发展中季节效应的部分环境因素进行了讨论.     

8─11个月婴儿迂回行为发展特点与学习能力的研究

采用程序标准化的婴儿迂回行为测验,探讨了２４４名８－１１个月婴儿的迂回行为发展特点及学习能力。结果表明：（１）８－１１个月婴儿的迂回行为水平表现出随婴儿月龄的增长而提高的趋势。（２）８－１１个月的婴儿具有从反复尝试中学会迂回行为的可能性,其中９、１０个月的婴儿的学习可能性较大,而８个月婴儿的学习可能性较小。（３）８－１１个月婴儿的学习速度随月龄增大而提高。     

汉语婴儿词汇学习的注意偏好

婴儿的动、名词词类学习存在跨文化差异,但是很少研究从注意偏好角度解释这类差异。本研究利用习惯化范式考察汉语婴儿在6-8个月和17-19个月时对事件中人物,动作和物体的区分。结果发现,6-8个月的婴儿仅能区分动作变化,对人物和物体无法区分,而17-19个月的婴儿对三类变化均可以区分。本研究提供了婴儿早期注意偏好发展的实验依据,同时为儿童早期单词获得提供了新的理论基础。     

婴儿运动经验与母婴社会性情绪互动行为的关系

本研究考察了个体早期自主位移运动——爬行经验与母婴社会性情绪互动的关系。对79名8、9个月婴儿的母亲进行访谈,结果发现,在8个月婴儿中,婴儿会爬与否对母婴社会性情绪互动行为有一定作用,但这种作用没有达到显著水平;在9个月时,婴儿是否会爬则对母婴社会性情绪互动行为有显著影响,表明爬行经验对母婴社会性情绪互动行为的影响存在累积效应与年龄特异性。     

Brain potentials to native and non-native speech contrasts in 7- and 11-month-old American infants

Abstract Behavioral data establish a dramatic change in infants' phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months of age. Foreign-language phonetic discrimination significantly declines with increasing age. Using a longitudinal design, we examined the electrophysiological responses of 7- and 11-month-old American infants to native and non-native consonant contrasts. Analyses of the event-related potentials (ERP) of the group data at 7 and at 11 months of age demonstrated that infants' discriminatory ERP responses to the non-native contrast are present at 7 months of age but disappear by 11 months of age, consistent with the behavioral data reported in the literature. However, when the same infants were divided into subgroups based on individual ERP components, we found evidence that the infant brain remains sensitive to the non-native contrast at 11 months of age, showing differences in either the P150-250 or the N250-550 time window, depending upon the subgroup. Moreover, we observed an increase in infants' responsiveness to native language consonant contrasts over time. We describe distinct neural patterns in two groups of infants and suggest that their developmental differences may have an impact on language development.     

Visual processing and infant ocular Latencies in the overlap paradigm

Young infants have repeatedly been shown to be slower than older infants to shift fixation from a midline stimulus to a peripheral stimulus. This is generally thought to reflect maturation of the neural substrates that mediate the disengagement of attention, but this developmental difference may also be attributable to young infants' slower processing of the midline stimulus. This possibility was tested with 3- and 7-month-old infants in 2 experiments in which the degree of familiarity of the midline stimulus was manipulated across repeated trials. The results of these experiments demonstrated that the processing of midline content does affect infants' ocular latencies to a peripheral stimulus but that developmental differences in such processing do not account for developmental differences in disengagement seen across the 1st year.     

Infant responses to maternal still-face at 4 and 9 months

This study investigated developmental changes in infant responses to maternal still-face (SF) situations. Infants (21 males and 25 females) of Japanese mothers were observed in a face-to-face SF paradigm, comprising four phases (normal/SF/normal/SF), at two infant ages (4 and 9 months). The infants' facial expression, gaze direction, and vocalization were coded in both SF and normal interaction conditions. The results indicated that infants at both ages showed a decrease in displaying positive facial expression and gazing at their mothers during SF conditions. The 4-month-old displayed emotional expression and directed their gaze toward their mothers more frequently than the 9-month-old. However, the 9-month-old vocalized more often in SF situations, attempting to elicit responses from their mothers. The "carry-over" effect was observed only in 9-month-old. The results were discussed in the context of developmental changes in infants' social skills to cope with an emotionally stressful situation.     

Rapid eye movement (REM) in premature neonates and developmental outcome at 6 months

Different aspects of early sleep organization have been associated with subsequent development in premature infants. The aim of the present study was to assess the relations between rapid eye movement (REM) activity in premature neonates and infants' developmental outcomes at 6 months. Participants were 81 premature infants (47 males). Sleep-wake states and REM were observed across 4 consecutive evening hours (7-11 PM) in 10-s frames when infants were between 32 and 36 weeks post-menstrual age. Developmental outcome was assessed at 6 months with the mental development index (MDI) of the Bayley II. Infants with low-REM activity spent more time in less growth-promoting states, including crying and unfocused alert states in the neonatal period and had lower MDI scores at 6 months corrected age compared to infants with high-REM. Differences between the high- and low-REM groups were independent of neonatal medical risk. Low-REM activity may serve as an indicator of developmental risk among premature neonates.     

Evidence for task-dependent categorization in infancy

Two experiments compared infants' attention to the categorical distinction between people and animals in object-examining and sequential-touching tasks. In Experiment 1, 10- and 13-month-old infants distinguished between animals and people in an object-examining task. In this task, infants are familiarized with individual exemplars from one category, and then their response to exemplars from another category is measured. In Experiment 2, 13- and 16-month-old infants, but not 10-month-old infants, attended to the same distinction in a sequential-touching task. In this task, infants are presented with several exemplars from two categories simultaneously, and the order in which they touch those objects is assessed. Evaluation of infants' touching behavior in Experiment 2 also revealed developmental changes in how they approached this task. The combined results of these two experiments confirm the general trend reported in the literature and begin to provide insight into developmental changes that contribute to infants' ability to apply their categorization skills in different task contexts.     

Effects of joint attention on long-term memory in 9-month-old infants: an event-related potentials study

Joint attention develops during the first year of life but little is known about its effects on long-term memory. We investigated whether joint attention modulates long-term memory in 9-month-old infants. Infants were familiarized with visually presented objects in either of two conditions that differed in the degree of joint attention (high versus low). EEG indicators in response to old and novel objects were probed directly after the familiarization phase (immediate recognition), and following a 1-week delay (delayed recognition). In immediate recognition, the amplitude of positive slow-wave activity was modulated by joint attention. In the delayed recognition, the amplitude of the Pb component differentiated between high and low joint attention. In addition, the positive slow-wave amplitude during immediate and delayed recognition correlated with the frequency of infants' looks to the experimenter during familiarization. Under both high- and low-joint-attention conditions, the processing of unfamiliar objects was associated with an enhanced Nc component. Our results show that the degree of joint attention modulates EEG during immediate and delayed recognition. We conclude that joint attention affects long-term memory processing in 9-month-old infants by enhancing the relevance of attended items.     

Dynamic pointing triggers shifts of visual attention in young infants

Pointing, like eye gaze, is a deictic gesture that can be used to orient the attention of another person towards an object or an event. Previous research suggests that infants first begin to follow a pointing gesture between 10 and 13 months of age. We investigated whether sensitivity to pointing could be seen at younger ages employing a technique recently used to show early sensitivity to perceived eye gaze. Three experiments were conducted with 4.5- and 6.5-month-old infants. Our first goal was to examine whether these infants could show a systematic response to pointing by shifting their visual attention in the direction of a pointing gesture when we eliminated the difficulty of disengaging fixation from a pointing hand. The results from Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that a dynamic, but not a static, pointing gesture triggers shifts of visual attention in infants as young as 4.5 months of age. Our second goal was to clarify whether this response was based on sensitivity to the directional posture of the pointing hand, the motion of the pointing hand, or both. The results from Experiment 3 suggest that the direction of motion is necessary but not sufficient to orient infants' attention toward a distal target. Infants shifted their attention in the direction of the pointing finger, but only when the hand was moving in the same direction. These results suggest that infants are prepared to orient to the distal referent of a pointing gesture which likely contributes to their learning the communicative function of pointing.