The Influence of Active and Passive Motion Experience on Infants' Visual Prediction Ability.

In the present study we examined whether infants' visual prediction abilities were related to different types of motion experiences. We tested 30 6-month-old infants on a visual-spatial prediction task in which they had to visually anticipate the locational reappearance of temporarily occluded moving objects. We assigned infants to one of three experience groups: active locomotion training, passive motion experience, and a no-training control group.

Locomotion training contributes to 6-month-old infants' mental rotation ability.

This study investigated whether a locomotion training contributes to mental rotation performance in infants. Thirty 6-month-old pre-locomotor infants were randomly assigned to either a locomotion training or a control group which received no training. The general status of motor and cognitive development measured with the Bayley Scales did not differ between the 2 groups.

The Relationship between Crawling and Emotion Discrimination in 9- to 10-Month-Old Infants.

The present study examined whether infants' crawling experience is related to their sensitivity to fearful emotional expressions. Twenty-nine 9- to 10-month-old infants were tested in a preferential looking task, in which they were presented with different pairs of animated faces on a screen displaying a 100% happy facial expression and morphed facial expressions containing varying degrees of fear and happiness. Regardless of their crawling experiences, all infants looked longer at more fearful faces.

How 9-month-old crawling infants profit from visual-manual rotations in a mental rotation task.

Studies show that visual-manual object exploration influences spatial cognition, and specifically mental rotation performance in infancy. The current work with 9-month-old infants investigated which specific exploration procedures (related to crawling experience) support mental rotation performance. In two studies, we examined the effects of two different exploration procedures, manual rotation (Study 1) and haptic scanning (Study 2), on subsequent mental rotation performance.

The positive influence of manual object exploration on predictive grasping for a moving object in 9-month-old infants.

The present study examined whether infants' manual prediction ability is related to different types of their manual object exploration behavior. Thirty-two 9-month-old infants were tested in a manual prediction task, in which they were encouraged to reach for a temporarily occluded moving object. All infants also participated in a manual exploration task, in which they could freely explore five toy blocks.

Training of 7-month-old infants' manual object exploration skills: Effects of active and observational experience.

In the present study, a fine motor training was developed and evaluated in which infants were trained to manually explore objects in an advanced manner. Fifty 7-month-old infants were randomly assigned to three different training conditions: (1) to an active manual exploration training, in which they learned to explore objects efficiently, (2) to an observational manual exploration training, in which they observed how an adult performed sophisticated actions on objects, or (3) to a control group receiving no training. The results impressively indicate that infants with a low level of object exploration skill prior to the training showed the most training effects as compared to infants with proficient object exploratory actions.