INFANT BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT 10. 81-95 (1987) The Development of Infants ’ Responses to People and a Doll: Implications for Research in Communication

The behavior of eight babies was studied longitudinatty when facing people and a doll. The eight babies were observed biweekly from 3 to 25 weeks. Among them, five continued to be observed on a monthly basis up to 45 weeks. At each visit the babies were presented with their mother, a female-stranger, and a doll who were alternately active and inactive. Each condition losted 45 s at 3, 5 and 7 weeks and 60 s thereafter. The results showed that by 5 to 9 weeks the proportion of time babies looked, smiled and vocalized as well as moved their arms toward people differed significantly from those produced to the doll when confounding variables such as familiarity and activity of the stimuli were manipulated. This pottern of early differential responsiveness, together with important developmental changes over the IO-month period, suggests thot infants are reacting to communication-related cues in the presence of social stimuli. The implications of these findings for the development of communication are discussed. social perception communication adult-infant interaction obiect-infant interactio