The effects of adults' affective expression and direction of visual gaze on 12‐month‐olds' visual preferences for an object following a 5‐minute, 1‐day,or 1‐month delay

Between 12‐ and 14 months of age infants begin to use another's direction of gaze and affective expression in learning about various objects and events. What is not well understood is how long infants' behaviour towards a previously unfamiliar object continues to be influenced following their participation in circumstances of social referencing. In this experiment, we examined infants' sensitivity to an adult's direction of gaze and their visual preference for one of two objects following a 5‐min, 1‐day, or 1‐month delay. Ninety‐six 12‐month‐olds participated. For half of the infants during habituation (i.e., familiarization), the adults' direction of gaze was directed towards an unfamiliar object (look condition). For the remaining half of the infants during habituation, the adults' direction of gaze was directed away from the unfamiliar object (look‐away condition). All infants were habituated to two events. One event consisted of an adult looking towards (look condition) or away from (look‐away condition) an object while facially and vocally conveying a positive affective expression. The second event consisted of the same adult looking towards or away from a different object while conveying a disgusted affective expression. Following the habituation phase and a 5‐min, 1‐day, or 1‐month delay, infants' visual preference was assessed. During the visual preference phase, infants saw the two objects side by side where the adult conveying the affective expression was not visible. Results of the visual preference phase indicate that infants in the look condition showed a significant preference for object previously paired with the positive affect following a 5‐min and 1‐day delay. No significant visual preference was found in the look condition following a 1‐month delay. No significant preferences were found at any retention interval in the look‐away condition. Results are discussed in terms of early learning, social referencing, and early memory.     

Justification Vindicated Justification: Volume One,Michael Horton,Zondervan, 2018 (ISBN 978‐0‐310‐49160‐6), 400 pp., pb £39.99 Justification: Volume Two,Michael Horton,Zondervan, 2018 (ISBN 978‐0‐310‐57838‐3), 528 pp., pb £39.99

Writing from a classical Reformed perspective, Horton reviews the entire history of ‘Justification’ and then sharply criticizes many fashionable movements in theology that he sees as a betrayal of the doctrine. These include ‘the new perspective on Paul’, the Finnish School of Tuomo Mannermaa, Radical Orthodoxy, and even the Lutheran–Roman Catholic Joint Declaration of 1999. Writing with theological and pastoral passion, Horton is a formidable polemicist who never loses sight of his central concern, so that his book is both an exciting debate and a moving witness to the Pauline, Lutheran, and Calvinist Gospel.