Type of object motion facilitates word mapping by preverbal infants.

This study assessed whether specific types of object motion, which predominate in maternal naming to preverbal infants, facilitate word mapping by infants. A total of 60 full-term 8-month-old infants were habituated to two spoken words, /bæf/ and /wem/, synchronous with the handheld motions of a toy dragonfly and a fish or a lamb chop and a squiggly. They were presented in one of four experimental motion conditions-shaking, looming, upward, and sideways-and one all-motion control condition.

Early Interactive Emotional Development.

Early infant emotional development concerns the interactive emergence of emotional states that motivate approach and withdrawal. These are indexed by different patterns of infant facial expressions, vocalization, and gazing that emerge within parent-infant interactions in the first 10 months of life. Specifically, the interface of a limited number of interactive parameters creates complex real-time patterns which change over developmental time.