Three-month-olds' visual preference for faces and its underlying visual processing mechanisms

This study was aimed at investigating the face preference phenomenon and its underlying mechanisms at 3 months of age. Using an eye-tracker apparatus, Experiment 1 demonstrated that 3-month-olds prefer natural face images to unnatural ones, replicating and extending previous evidence obtained with schematic facelike stimuli. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the general mechanisms that induce face preference in newborns could not explain the same phenomenon at 3 months of age, when infants are attracted by perceptual cues more specific to faces. This suggests that signs of a process of cognitive specialization are already present in 3-month-olds' visual behavior toward faces.     

Do 12.5-month-old infants consider what objects others can see when interpreting their actions?

The present research examined whether 12.5-month-old infants take into account what objects an agent knows to be present in a scene when interpreting the agent's actions. In two experiments, the infants watched a female human agent repeatedly reach for and grasp object-A as opposed to object-B on an apparatus floor. Object-B was either (1) visible to the agent through a transparent screen; (2) hidden from the agent (but not the infants) by an opaque screen; or (3) placed by the agent herself behind the opaque screen, so that even though she could no longer see object-B, she knew of its presence there. The infants interpreted the agent's repeated actions toward object-A as revealing a preference for object-A over object-B only when she could see object-B (1) or was aware of its presence in the scene (3). These results indicate that, when watching an agent act on objects in a scene, 12.5-month-old infants keep track of the agent's representation of the physical setting in which these actions occur. If the agent's representation is incomplete, because the agent is ignorant about some aspect of the setting, infants use the agent's representation, rather than their own more complete representation, to interpret the agent's actions.     

Bare fingers,but no obvious influence of “prickly” Velcro! In the absence of parents’ encouragement,it is not clear that “sticky mittens” provide an advantage to the process of learning to reach

In their critique of our mittens study, Needham et al. (2015. Infant Behavior and Development) describe our findings as “surprising.” Further; they suggest that babies in our “sticky mittens” condition may have been discouraged from reaching because, in our study, infants may have touched “prickly” Velcro with their bare fingers. In this response, we present data analyses that do not support the interpretation that finger contact with our Velcroed toy surfaces was associated with poor reaching performance in our “sticky” mittens group. We also clarify that our toys were mainly covered with “non-prickly” Velcro. To explain discrepancies between studies, we restate the original intent of our study and reasons for our methodological modifications. We point to confounds and lack of critical control conditions in the Needham et al. studies, which prevent the making of firm inferences about the effectiveness of the “sticky mittens experience” on the learning to reach process. We also present additional analyses on our “sticky” mittens group showing that the increasing rate of finger touch on the toy leads to greater reaching performance while the rate of toy sticking to the mittens does not. We discuss the importance of sensory-motor experience on the development of learning to reach in infancy and conclude that our results are not surprising.