Women's responses to young infants' cries.

Women's caregiving and perceptual responses to young infants' cries were assessed as a function of parity and cry cause. Ss cared for a crying infant manikin in a simulated baby-sitting situation. Mothers and nonmothers were quite similar in basic features of their caregiving behaviors, suggesting that the effects of parity may be to fine-tune skills that many women bring to the task of caring for young infants. The specific cause of the cry (hunger or pain) was associated with few differences in caregiving behavior, even though a subsequent perceptual task showed that Ss reliably discriminated the two cries. Further analyses of the perceptual data indicated that cry sounds communicate information about the general distress level of the infant better than information about specific causes. Thus, although the sound of the cry may inform caregivers about overall distress level, caregiving behaviors appear to be determined by additional factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of context on infants' responses to novel objects.

Studied 24 infants (mean age 27 wks) to test the hypothesis that responses to novelty vary with the degree of change from familiarization to test conditions. One such change is to permit manipulation during familiarization but not on the test. In 2 groups, Ss looked at and manipulated the familiarization objects. Ss who could also manipulate during the tests showed better differentiation between novel and familiar objects than did those who could not manipulate during tests. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of manipulation in infants' responses to invariant properties of objects.

Hypothesized that manipulation would enhance 1-yr-old infants' attention to and detection of structural invariants more than nonstructural invariants. In Study 1, 16 Ss were familiarized with 2 series of objects, one in which texture remained invariant while color changed and the other in which pattern remained invariant while shape changed. Within each series, Ss were tested for differential responsiveness to 2 new objects, one with the familiar characteristic and the other with a novel one. In Study 2, 12 Ss were familiarized with another 2 series of objects, one in which shape remained the same while pattern varied and the other in which color remained the same while texture varied. Data from the two studies are consistent in that the structural invariants were more clearly differentiated than the nonstructural invariants. Results of Study 3, in which 12 Ss were familiarized with objects encased in plastic boxes, suggest that Ss in Studies 1 and 2 were using haptic information about shape and texture to enhance their differentiation of objects along those lines. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The induced affect response: 10-week-old infants' responses to three emotion expressions.

Responses to mothers' presentations of happy, sad, and angry faces were studied in a sample of 12 infants, 6 boys and 6 girls at age 10 weeks?±?5 days. Each infant's mother displayed noncontingent, practiced facial and vocal expressions of the 3 emotions. Each expression occurred 4 times, with a 20-s head-turn-away between presentations. The orders of presentation were randomly assigned within sex of infant. Mothers' and infants' facial behaviors were coded using the Maximally Discriminative Facial Movement Coding System. The data indicated that (a) the infants discriminated each emotion, (b) apparent matching responses may occur under some conditions but not all, and (c) these apparent matching responses were only a part of nonrandom behavior patterns indicating induced emotional or affective responses of infants to mothers' expressions. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Indirect effects and infants' reaction to strangers.

Examined whether an infant's reaction to a stranger would be indirectly influenced by the infant's observing a stranger–third party interaction. It was expected that the infant's subsequent willingness to play with a stranger would be influenced by prior observation of a positive interaction between a stranger and a third party, especially if the third party was the infant's mother. 45 15-mo-old infants were exposed to 1 of 3 situations. In Condition 1, the S observed its mother interacting with an unfamiliar adult (UA2) in a positive manner; in Condition 2, the S observed UA2 interacting with another unfamiliar adult (UA1) in a positive manner; and in Condition 3, UA2 did not interact with the mother or UA1. Following exposure to Conditions 1, 2, or 3, UA2 approached the S to play. Ss in Conditions 1 and 2 were less wary of UA2 and more willing to interact with the mother than were Ss in Condition 3. Furthermore, Ss in Condition 1 showed more positive affect when offered a toy by the stranger and accepted a toy more in the last minute of play. Results suggest indirect effects influence social interactions and show that significant others can play an important role in mediating these effects. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Respiratory responses to unsupported arm lifts paced during expiration

Unsupported arm exercise endurance is reduced in both normal subjects and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in association with an increase in dyspnea and alterations in the pattern of respiratory muscle recruitment. Some report greater difficulty carrying out arm activity paced during the expiratory phase of respiration rather than during inspiration. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of unsupported arm exercise lifts paced in phase with expiration (EUAL) on (a) diaphragm recruitment measured as the electromyographic amplitude (EMG-DI), (b) the pattern of thoracoabdominal motion measured with inductive plethysmography, and (c) the sensation of dyspnea measured with a 100 mm visual analog scale. Data were collected from 18 normal adult subjects at baseline and during EUAL. When compared with rest, EUAL resulted in significant increases in mean inspiratory and expiratory diaphragm EMG amplitudes, dyssynchronous thoracoabdominal motion, and dyspnea intensity. These changes in diaphragm recruitment and thoracoabdominal motion may in part explain reports of increased dyspnea intensity with unsupported arm exercise.     

European American and Chinese parents' responses to children's success and failure: Implications for children's responses.

The authors examined cultural differences in parents' responses to their children's performance. In Study 1 (N = 421), Chinese 5th graders reported that their parents de-emphasized their academic success and emphasized their academic failure, whereas their American counterparts reported that their parents did the opposite. This partially accounted for Chinese (vs. American) children responding less positively to success and more negatively to failure. In Study 2 (N = 128), Chinese and American mothers' responses to their 4th and 5th graders' performance were observed in the laboratory. The cultural differences in children's reports of parents' responses documented in Study 1 were replicated; mothers' responses were also associated with children's subsequent performance. In addition, Chinese mothers were more involved than were American mothers, but their affect was similar. Taken together, the results suggest that parents' responses to children's performance may be a channel for cultural transmission and perpetuation of responses to performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young infants' sensitivity to optical information for collision.

Four experiments explored the properties of the stimulus event that will evoke blinking and backward head movements in 100 3–4 wk old infants. Measured by a sensitive pressure transducer, backward head movements did not occur when Ss viewed displays that specified an object approaching on a collision course, except when some of the object's contours rose in the S's visual field. Thus, such head movements may reflect a tendency of young infants to fixate and pursue contours that move upward. In contrast, displays specifying collision evoked more frequent blinking than displays specifying an object's withdrawal, whether or not rising contours were present. The reliability of the blink response suggests that very young infants are sensitive to some optical information for collision. (French abstract) (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Limitations on infants' response to rate-based auditory-visual relations.

To study rate-based intersensory matching, infants first were familiarized with different auditory-visual relations and then were tested for detection of auditory visual equivalence. Across several different experiments, 4-, 6-, and 8-mo-old infants first were habituated with (1) a single, temporally concordant auditory-visual compound stimulus, (2) a single, temporally discordant compound stimulus, (3) 2 different temporally concordant compounds, or (4) a silently moving visual stimulus. A consistent and robust finding was a preference for the visual stimulus that moved at a novel velocity, indicating that the temporal attributes of the visual component dominated responsiveness. Only 1 experiment yielded evidence, albeit limited, of intersensory matching; infants habituated with a silently moving visual stimulus preferred the sound-specified visual stimulus in the presence of the rapid sound but not in the presence of the slow sound. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontal brain asymmetry predicts infants' response to maternal separation.

Examined whether certain features of infant temperament might be related to individual differences in the asymmetry of resting frontal activation. EEG was recorded from the left and right frontal and parietal scalp regions of 13 normal 10-month-old infants. Infant behavior was then observed during a brief period of maternal separation. Those infants who cried in response to maternal separation showed greater right frontal activation during the preceding baseline period compared with infants who did not cry. Frontal activation asymmetry may be a state-independent marker for individual differences in threshold of reactivity to stressful events and vulnerability to particular emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Posttraumatic stress symptoms and victimization among Japanese American women.

This study of Japanese American women and immigrant women from Japan investigated the relationship between posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and the perceived abusiveness of partners' emotional and physical violence, with a community-based random sample. Women who experienced injuries and/or fear for their lives, in addition to partners' emotional and physical violence, had significantly higher PTS symptom counts than those with no lifetime experience of partners' violence. Victimization by nonintimates also increased PTS symptom counts. Satisfaction with social support significantly mitigated the negative effect of childhood abuse for reexperiencing and avoidance symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pitch and rhythmic patterns affecting infants' sensitivity to musical phrase structure.

The present studies were undertaken to learn more about the nature of the cues that underlie infants' perception of musical phrase structure. Exp 1 demonstrated that infants in C. L. Krumhansl and P. W. Jusczyk's (1990) study were responding to the phrase structure instead of to the beginnings and endings of Mozart minuet stimuli. Exp 2 showed that infants treat musical passages with pauses inserted at phrase boundaries much as they do unaltered versions of the same passages. Exps 3 and 4 indicated that the direction of change in pitch height and tone duration is critical to obtaining longer orientation times to musical passages that are segmented at phrase boundaries. Finally, Exp 5 demonstrates that different effects found for the forward and reversed versions of the passages with inserted pauses are not the result of an intrinsic preference for the forward versions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in infants' visual response to temporal frequency.

Investigated the development of visual responsiveness to variations in temporal frequency in 6 studies that were conducted when infants were at 4 and 6 mo of age. Groups of 12 infants each were tested in each study. In the 1st 2 studies, Ss viewed pairs of identical check patterns flashing at 2, 4, and 8 Hz, and their visual preferences were observed. When rate covaried with duty cycle (overall intensity), both age groups exhibited differential fixation as a function of frequency. To find out whether intensity variations were responsible for these results, intensity variations were eliminated (by equating duty cycle at 50%), and only frequency was varied. This manipulation resulted in the elimination of the previously observed differential response in the 4-mo-olds but had no effect on the 6-mo-olds' differential response. As a final check on the role of intensity, overall intensity was varied while temporal frequency was kept constant. Results show that 4-mo-old Ss continued to respond differentially whereas 6-mo-olds did not. These data show that at 4 mo of age Ss attended to the overall intensity of stimulation and ignored its temporal characteristics, whereas at 6 mo of age they no longer attended to the overall intensity and instead attended to temporal frequency per se. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of infants' and adults' sensitivity to Western musical structure.

28 adults and 48 8-mo-old infants listened to repeated transpositions of a 10-note melody exemplifying the rules of Western tonal music. They were tested for their detection of 2 types of changes to that melody: (1) a 4-semitone change in 1 note that remained within the key and implied dominant harmony (diatonic change) or (2) a 1-semitone change in the same note that went outside the key (nondiatonic change). Adults easily detected the nondiatonic change but had difficulty with the diatonic change. Infants detected both changes equally well, performing better than adults in some circumstances. These findings imply that there are qualitative differences in infants' and adults' processing of musical information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of young infants' reaching behavior to stimulus distance and solidity.

The reaching behavior of 12 infants in the presence of solid objects and pictures of objects placed within and beyond possible contact distance was videotaped in 3 sessions at 15, 19, and 24 wks of age. From 15 wks onward the Ss adjusted their reaching behavior to changes in the physical distance of stimuli. However, infants who attempted to manipulate the solid objects tended to reach for pictured objects in the same way. The different amounts of visual attention Ss paid to objects and pictures indicated that they could visually discriminate between the flat and solid stimuli, but it seemed this capacity for depth perception could be obscured by the rather compulsive tendency of young infants to manipulate patterned surfaces situated within reach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adults' interpretation of infants' acts.

Adults are often viewed as skilled interpreters who understand infants' acts even when they are unconventional and diffuse. The first step in interpretation—the selection of acts from the stream of behavior—is examined here. One hundred forty adults (mothers and fathers and other men and women) viewed videotapes of 9-, 15-, and 21-month-old infants. One half of the subjects were asked to note times when they thought the baby performed a meaningful act; the other half of the subjects were asked to note an intentionally communicative act. Times were recorded by a microcomputer. Parents selected more meaningful acts than nonparents and agreed more about selection of all acts. All subjects agreed more about intentionally communicative than about meaningful acts, at least for older infants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Japanese and United States preschool children's responses to conflict and distress

Japanese and U.S. preschool children's responses to hypothetical interpersonal dilemmas were examined as a function of culture, gender, and maternal child-rearing values. U.S. children showed more anger, more aggressive behavior and language, and underregulation of emotion than Japanese children, across different contexts of assessment. Children from the 2 cultures appeared more similar on prosocial and avoidant patterns, though in some contexts U.S. children also showed more prosocial themes. Girls from both cultures expressed more prosocial themes and sometimes more anger than boys. Maternal encouragement of children's emotional expressivity was correlated with anger and aggression in children. It was more characteristic of U.S. than Japanese mothers, while emphasis on psychological discipline (reasoning; guilt and anxiety induction) was more characteristic of Japanese than U.S. mothers. The relevance of a conceptual framework that focuses on differences in Eastern and Western cultures in self-construals regarding independence and interdependence is considered.     

Structural invariance of vocational interests across Japanese and American cultures.

Two samples of college students (Japanese, N?=?373; American, N?=?401) were given the Inventory of Occupational Preferences (T. J. G. Tracey & J. Rounds, 1996a), and the structural invariance across cultures was examined at the item and at various scale levels. Correlations of principal-components factor loadings demonstrated that the item structure was similar across cultures. Three separate scale structures were examined: Holland's six-type circular model, Tracey and Round's eight-type circular model, and Tracey and Round's spherical representation. The fit of the six-type and spherical models to the Japanese sample was significantly worse than their fit to the U.S. sample. There were no differences in cross-cultural fit for the eight-type model. Few structure differences were found between and within genders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between infants' activity with objects and attention to object appearance.

The authors examined the relation between infants' motor skills and attention to objects features in events in which a hand acted on an object (e.g., squeezed it) that then produced a sound (e.g., squeaking). In this study, 6- to 7-month-old infants (N = 41) were habituated to a single event and then tested with changes in appearance and action. Infants robustly responded to changes in action, but as a group did not respond to changes in appearance. Moreover, more skilled activity with objects during naturalistic play was associated with longer looking in response to a change in appearance, but not to a change in action. Implications for the relation between perception and action in infancy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of object parts in infants' attention to form-function correlations.

Three studies explored the nature of form–function relationships recognized by infants. In Study 1, 14- and 18-month-old infants were habituated to videotaped displays of objects in which 2 form–function correlations were embodied within different parts of objects. Infants were tested on objects in which these familiar correlations either were maintained or were violated. Infants at both ages noticed the violations, indicating recognition of the relationship between the forms and their corresponding functions. Studies 2 and 3 examined infants' recognition of a form–function correlation that was inconsistent with the kinds of correlations found in real objects. Fourteen- and 18-month olds were habituated to objects in which the form of one part was correlated with the function of a different part. Only the younger infants attended to the form–function correlation, suggesting that older infants have acquired constraints on the kinds of correlations they recognize. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)