Object–person discrimination and communication at 3 and 10 months.

J. Contole and R. Over's (1979, 1981) procedure for studying infant discrimination using a signal detection analysis of observers' ratings of infant behavior was used to test claims by E. Tronick et al (see record 1980-07280-001) that 3-mo-olds distinguish people from objects and nonverbally communicate with familiar caregivers. 12 observers—parents and undergraduates—judged from videotaped samples of 3- and 10-mo-old infants' behavior if the infants were alone or otherwise, if they were with something that was active or passive, and if they were greeting or withdrawing. Observers could only judge whether the infants were with their mother or an object for the 10-mo-olds. The greeting–withdrawal results seem to indicate that 3-mo-olds do communicate with their caregivers; however, observers were also able to judge greeting–withdrawal when the infants were with an object. There were no sensitivity differences between the 2 observer groups, although the parents were biased to expect the infants to be with mother and to be greeting. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)