Developmental changes in the scanning of faces by young infants.

6 1-month-old infants and 6 2-month-old infants each viewed 3 faces (his mother's, a strange woman's, and a strange man's) while his eye movements were recorded by corneal photography. The 1-month-olds fixated away from the faces most of the time, and they looked at their mothers even less often than at the strangers. When they did fixate a face, they usually chose a limited portion of the perimeter. By constrast, 2-month-olds fixated the faces most of the time, looked at more features, and were more likely to look at internal features, especially the eyes. This scanning resembles that reported previously for 2-dimensional shapes, although in some respects it appears unique to faces.     

Visual and cardiac responses to animate and inanimate faces by young term and preterm infants.

Infants' looking and looking-away behaviors, as well as cardiac responses to mothers' spontaneous and imitative and to dolls' animated and still faces, were recorded for 18 term and 18 preterm infants when they were 3 months old. Infants spent less time looking at their mothers' than at the doll's faces, and their heart-rate levels were elevated while looking at mothers' faces. These effects were most pronounced for the preterm infants whose inferior scores on the animate visual item of the Brazelton neonatal scale suggested a continuity of visual inattentiveness to animate stimuli. Both groups also looked at the inanimate more than the animate doll's face and evidenced lower heart-rate levels during that situation. An information-processing/arousal-modulation interpretation was made for infant looking-away behavior and elevated heart rate during the more arousing mother's-face situations.     

关于美学的对象及学科定位

美学是以一定的哲学理论为基础对审美关系和审美经验作出分析和解释的理论，审美关系的价值表现即审美意识形态，与一般意识形态相比较，两既有共同之处，也存在着实质性的区别，人科学领域的重要话题逐步从认识论领域转移向美学领域，而美学理论和美学思维对于思考和解决现代社会人类所面临的严重危机可以提供积极而建设性的意见，因此，美学在现代人科学中的地位及作用既是一个理论问题，又是一个实践问题。     

Conditions for young infants' perception of object trajectories

When an object moves behind an occluder and re-emerges, 4-month-old infants perceive trajectory continuity only when the occluder is narrow, raising the question of whether time or distance out of sight is the important constraining variable. One hundred and forty 4-month-olds were tested in five experiments aimed to disambiguate time and distance out of sight. Manipulating the object's visible speed had no effect on infants' responses, but reducing occlusion time by increasing object speed while occluded induced perception of trajectory continuity. In contrast, slowing the ball while it was behind a narrow or intermediate screen did not modify performance. It is concluded that 4-month-olds perceive trajectory continuity when time or distance out of sight is short.     

Assessing multiple object tracking in young children using a game

Visual tracking of multiple objects in a complex scene is a critical survival skill. When we attempt to safely cross a busy street, follow a ball’s position during a sporting event, or monitor children in a busy playground, we rely on our brain’s capacity to selectively attend to and track the position of specific objects in a dynamic scene. This ability to visually track simultaneously moving objects in a continuously changing and multisensory environment is a critical component of nearly all forms of visual-motor coordination. While methods for assessing Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) in adults are well established, due to challenges associated with designing a MOT task suitable for young children, we have little understanding of MOT abilities under the age of 5 years. To better understand how and when young children learn to track multiple objects, we designed, implemented and evaluated TrackFX, the first game-based MOT task running on a touch tablet designed for children as young as 30 months old. We present findings from an empirical study of 31 children between the age of 30 and 58 months and implications for game-based learning.     

The effect of teacher intervention on object manipulation in young children

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of limited oral and physical teacher intervention on object manipulation by preschool and early elementary children. The population consisting of 70 children, three, four, five, and six years old from two preschools and two kindergarten classes were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. Children were observed as they manipulated magnets in classroom settings. Experimental students had the objects placed in their hands and were orally invited to explore. Results showed that there were significant differences between the groups in total time spent with the objects, number of activities performed, and cognitive level of operation. No significant differences were found in the number of contacts or in the interactive effects of treatment and testing day. The findings suggest that teacher roles may have an effect on student exploration and quality of interaction with unfamiliar objects.     

Social contingency effects on subsequent perceptual-cognitive tasks in young infants

3 experiments with 3-month-old infants compared the effects of contingent and noncontingent adult-infant social interactions on subsequent infant-controlled habituation and choice tasks. Infants who experienced a prior noncontingent social interaction tended to adopt response strategies that reduced the density of stimulation during these subsequent nonsocial tasks. The results are discussed in terms of their generality and the types of mechanisms that might mediate these transfer effects from social to nonsocial procedures.     

Peripheral discrimination by three-month-old infants.

3-month-old infants made 2 types of discrimination with their peripheral vision. They discriminated between grossly different figures placed as far out as 30 degrees toward the periphery, and they discriminated between more subtly different figures, which differed only in the shape of their internal elements, out to 10 degrees. The results imply that infants can readily process stimuli with peripheral vision.     

Consistency and change in mothers' behavior toward young siblings

Siblings differ markedly in behavioral development, and it has been suggested that differential maternal treatment may contribute significantly to these differences. The question of how consistently mothers treat their different children was examined in a study of 45 sibling pairs from the Colorado Adoption Project, in which each child at 24 months of age was videotaped at home with the mother. The results showed mothers to be consistent in affection and verbal responsiveness but to differ in their controlling behavior toward the 2 siblings. Comparison of the same mother's behavior to the 2 siblings at 12 months and at 24 months showed little stability in maternal behavior to the same child over this age period.     

Newborn infants orient to sounds.

In 2 experiments, the majority of 21 newborn infants who were maintained in an alert state consistently turned their heads toward a continuous sound source presented 90 degrees from midline. For most infants this orientation response was rather slow, taking median latencies of 2.5 sec to begin and 5.5 sec to end. The most important factors in producing this impressive response seem to be the method of holding the infants during testing and the nature of the auditory stimulus.     

Use of salivary cortisol measurements in young infants: a note of caution

In order to investigate possible contamination of saliva samples with formula or breast milk obtained from young infants for cortisol assays, we measured cortisol concentrations in 3 common infant milk formulas and in breast milk before and after defatting and extraction using a commercial radioimmunoassay kit. Cortisol concentrations obtained prior to defatting and extraction were equal to or higher than (1.64-82.80 micrograms/dL) levels reported for salivary cortisol levels reported in newborn infants (0.09-2.08 micrograms/dL). Cortisol concentrations obtained after the defatting and extraction were lower (0.02-0.15 micrograms/dL), indicating that values obtained prior to defatting and extraction were due to cross-reacting substances as well as cortisol. As saliva samples are not routinely defatted or extracted prior to being assayed, high cortisol levels and interfering substances in formula and breast milk could contaminate salivary cortisol measurements in young infants. The present study suggests that appropriate controls should be taken when making salivary cortisol measurements in young infants to help ensure accurate results.     

西部地区的产业转型障碍—兼论成都市的产业结构调整

产业转型调整是经济结构调整的重点。西部地区的产业调整存在两个方面障碍，即产业要素缺口障碍和产业进入、退出障碍。成都市产业结构的转型障碍主要有劳动要素流动障碍、资本要素流动障碍和技术可进入性障碍，因此，应采取发挥政府对产业转型的引导作用、建立健全市场信息化制度、启动人才工程计划、把衰退产业的技术创新与新兴产业的开发相结合等措施。     

Noncontingent stimulation, stimulus familiarization, and subsequent learning in young infants

2 experiments assessed the effects of prior noncontingent or familiarization experience on subsequent operant conditioning (kick-produced mobile movement) in young infants. In Experiment 1, infants received either long- or short-term noncontingent exposure to their own rotating mobile or simply viewed this mobile for several days while it remained motionless. In Experiment 2, long-term exposure was provided by the same novel mobile used for subsequent training. In both experiments, prior noncontingent experience did not interfere with subsequent conditioning. In Experiment 2, however, simple long-term familiarization with the training mobile precluded "evidence" of learning. The results indicated that infants develop expectancies regarding how stimuli occurring in particular contexts should behave based on their prior experiences with these stimuli.