Marshall M. Haith

WHO PUT THE COG IN INFANT COGNITION? IS Rich Interpretation Too Costly?

Abstract The basic topic of my address today concerns how much of cognition is in the head of the infant and how much in the mind of the theoretician. My general stance is that we are being treated to an interpretive flavor of infant behavior that is much too rich.

The Relation Between Audition and Vision in the Human Newborn.

Four studies were conducted to investigate the relation between audition and vision in the human newborn. In all four studies visual activity was recorded with infrared corneal-reflection technqiues in 1- to 4-day-old infants. Study 1 concerned the effects of sound at midline on scanning in darkness and in a lit but formless field. In the dark compared to light, newborns maintained better eye control, centralized fixations, scanned with smaller eye movements, scanned less dispersely, and were wider-eyed. In a blank field, sound caused newborns to maintain better eye control, centralize fixations, scan with small eye movements, constrain fixations, and be wider-eyed than in silence. Sound had little effect on scanning in the dark beyond constraining fixations. Study 2 concerned the effects of sound at midline on scanning vertical and horizontal edges. Visual activity was different for the two visual stimuli. While viewing a vertical rather than a horizontal edge, newborns maintained better eye control and fixated closer to the position of the vertical edge. Newborns crossed the position of the horizontal edge when that edge was present. Sound affected scanning in general, centralizing fixations for newborns not already looking centrally, but sound did not affect the frequency of edge crossing. Study 3 concerned the effects of laterally presented sound on scanning spatially consonant or dissonant vertical bars. The major finding was that infants were sensitive to the spatial property of sound. Infants shifted fixations first toward and then gradually away from sound. Study 4 was an attempt to determine whether there is an effort constraint on the simultaneous functioning of auditory and visual systems. The effects of two differentially salient sounds on scanning two differentially salient visual stimuli were examined. Although the results appeared to support the idea of an effort constraint, the data were accounted for parsimoniously in terms of the spatial influence of sound of scanning. The data on visual activity were discussed in terms of the presence of inherent information-acquisition routines in the newborn. It was concluded that sound influences visual epistemic behavior even at birth.: Four studies were conducted to investigate the relation between audition and vision in the human newborn. In all four studies visual activity was recorded with infrared corneal-reflection technqiues in 1- to 4-day-old infants. Study 1 concerned the effects of sound at midline on scanning in darkness and in a lit but formless field. In the dark compared to light, newborns maintained better eye control, centralized fixations, scanned with smaller eye movements, scanned less dispersely, and were wider-eyed. In a blank field, sound caused newborns to maintain better eye control, centralize fixations, scan with small eye movements, constrain fixations, and be wider-eyed than in silence. Sound had little effect on scanning in the dark beyond constraining fixations. Study 2 concerned the effects of sound at midline on scanning vertical and horizontal edges. Visual activity was different for the two visual stimuli. While viewing a vertical rather than a horizontal edge, newborns maintained better eye control and fixated closer to the position of the vertical edge. Newborns crossed the position of the horizontal edge when that edge was present. Sound affected scanning in general, centralizing fixations for newborns not already looking centrally, but sound did not affect the frequency of edge crossing. Study 3 concerned the effects of laterally presented sound on scanning spatially consonant or dissonant vertical bars. The major finding was that infants were sensitive to the spatial property of sound. Infants shifted fixations first toward and then gradually away from sound. Study 4 was an attempt to determine whether there is an effort constraint on the simultaneous functioning of auditory and visual systems. The effects of two differentially salient sounds on scanning two differentially salient visual stimuli were examined. Although the results appeared to support the idea of an effort constraint, the data were accounted for parsimoniously in terms of the spatial influence of sound of scanning. The data on visual activity were discussed in terms of the presence of inherent information-acquisition routines in the newborn. It was concluded that sound influences visual epistemic behavior even at birth.

Infant Expectations and Reaction Time as Predictors of Childhood Speed of Processing and IQ.

A longitudinal study investigated the relation between infant expectations and reaction time (RT) and childhood IQ and RT. Measures of visual anticipation and visual RT were taken at 3.5 months and 4 years of age. In addition, manual RT and verbal and performance IQ were measured at 4 years of age. Infant visual RT correlated reliably with childhood visual RT, and infant performance correlated significantly with childhood IQ. Childhood performance also correlated with concurrent childhood IQ. Children were slower to initiate eye movements when a manual choice button press was required than when it was not required. This load effect decreased as IQ increased. Visual RT and manual RT in childhood correlated only marginally. These are the first data to suggest stability in RT between early infancy and childhood or predictability from infant RT and anticipation in the first half-year of life to childhood IQ.

The partial-lag design: A method for controlling spontaneous regression in the infant-control habituation paradigm*

The problem of spontaneous regression in the infant control procedure is discussed and empirical evidence demonstrating that it contributes significantly to postcriterion looking scores is presented. Previous approaches to controlling spontaneous regression are reviewed and are found unsatisfactory and/or inefficient. A new approach utilizing a partial-lag design is presented as an alternative. In contrast to previous approaches, this method successfully controls spontaneous regression without requiring a group of babies exclusively for control purposes.

Peripheral visual processing

An attempt was made to examine the development of the ability to identify stimuli presented to peripheral vision in several different tasks. Five- and 8-year-old children and college adults saw, for 20 msec, either a single figure at 1°, 2°, 4°, or 6° of visual angle from the fovea (singleform condition) or an off-foveal figure with an additional figure at the fovea (double-form condition). In the double-form conditions, the subjects were required to identify either the peripheral figure only (double-form presentation) or both figures (double-form report). The main effects of Age, Distance, and Form Condition were significant. Accuracy improved with increasing age and with decreasing distance. The Form Condition effect reflected lower accuracy in the two double-form conditions than in the single-form condition. Interestingly, there was no difference between the two double-form conditions, suggesting that the mere presence of a foveal stimulus, with instructions to ignore it, produces as much decrement in peripheral performance as when subjects are told to fully process and report the foveal stimulus. Also, there was no interaction between Form Condition and Distance, suggesting that the label “tunnel vision” may be misleading, since the presence of the foveal stimulus seems to have an equal effect on all peripheral locations and does not really “restrict” the size of the effective visual field.

Stability of visual expectations at 3.0 months of age

Three-month-old infants were observed on 2 days to examine stability in forming visual expectations. Babies saw pictures that appeared in left-righ alternation, 700-ms on with a 1,000-ms ISI. Anticipatory fixations and speeded RTs were the indexes of expectation

A developmental study of the effect of familiarity on short-term visual memory

Abstract An attempt was made to specify whether previously reported limitations on young childrens full-report capacity lay in a smaller amount of available information, in a shorter trace duration of information in visual information storage (VIS), or in poorer coding of information into permanent storage. Five- and 8-year-olds and adults were shown an eight-item array of figures. followed at varying intervals by an indicator signaling the subject to report the figure to which the indicator had pointed. The effects of three levels of familiarity or “labelability” were examined. While no age differences were revealed in amount of information available nor in the trace duration of information in VIS, strong age differences emerged in coding of information into permanent storage. Data on latency to verbal labeling and familiarity suggested that verbal labeling could not account for the age trends. Rather, the differences seemed to lie in the use of organized visual coding and rehearsal strategies by adults and their relative lack of use by children.

Semantic processing of unattended words by bilinguals: A test of the input switch mechanism

In three experiments bilingual subjects were presented stimuli consisting of a target word surrounded above and below by two copies of a to-be-ignored flanker word. Words from four semantic categories were used; two of the categories were assigned to one response while the other two categories were assigned to the second response. The language of the target and flanker words differed on all trials in Experiments 1 and 2 (cross-language flankers), while Experiment 3 involved a comparison between the effects of cross-language and same-language flankers. It was found that target response times were affected by the meaning of the to-be-ignored flanker words, both when the targets and flankers were printed in the same language (Experiment 3) and when they were printed in different languages (Experiments 1–3). It was concluded that this finding is difficult to reconcile with the view that bilinguals possess an “input switch” which operates to switch on processing in just one of their language systems at a time.

Event-specific expectations of 2- and 3-month-old infants

The Visual Expectation Paradigm (Haith, Hazan, & Goodman, 1988) was modibed to assess the role that picture content plays in the spatiotemporal expectations of 2- and 3-month-old infants. Infants watched pictures of 700-ms duration that appeared in left-right alternation with a 1,000-ms interstimulus interval. The same picture occurred repeatedly on one side, in alternation with an unpredictable picture on the other side. Across 3 studies, the unchanging picture, rather than engendering habituation, produced higher levels of anticipation and speeded reactions

Infant visual response to gestalt geometric forms

The sensitivity of 1- and 3-month-old infants to relations among visual elements was tested by employing Gestalt principles of good form in stimulus construction. Circles and squares were constructed of 12 dashed elements, and infant scanning of these figures was compared to their scanning of similar figures that differed only in that one of the 12 elements was rotated or displaced. If the infants detected the relations among the nonaltered elements, it was expected that their fixation would be attracted by the altered elements. This experimental strategy avoided the typical requirement in habituation studies that the baby remember a nonpresent stimulus to indicate sensitivity to a change in a present stimulus. The fixation activity of the older infants indicated sensitivity to the altered elements whereas the findings were unclear for the younger group. Eye movement size and fixation dispersion of the older group also increased as stimulus size increased, whereas this was not true for the younger group. At least by three months of age, infants are sensitive to the most powerful Gestalt principles of good form. Additionally, by this age, their fixation activity is attuned to physical characteristics of the visual array.