Pub Date : 2025-09-30DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102153
Gisella Decarli , Ludovica Veggiotti , Maria Dolores de Hevia
In the last decades, a growing body of research has assessed the link between numerical and action processing. However, this relationship has not been widely explored in the early stages of development. In this study, we aimed to investigate the number-action mapping during infancy with a novel action and to extend previous research by examining both size-action and quantity-action mappings. In the context of our study, 'size' is related to the perceptual attribute of how big or small an object appears and 'quantities' are connected to the numerical aspect, representing the number of items in a set. Using the habituation technique, 7-month-old infants were presented with videos of a character performing mouth openings directed towards objects of different sizes (Experiment 1; N = 40; 14 females) or quantities (Experiment 2; N = 40; 18 females). The findings suggest that infants are sensitive to the congruency of the pairings, highlighting the early presence of both number-action and size-action mappings.
{"title":"Exploring size-action and number-action associations in infancy","authors":"Gisella Decarli , Ludovica Veggiotti , Maria Dolores de Hevia","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102153","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102153","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the last decades, a growing body of research has assessed the link between numerical and action processing. However, this relationship has not been widely explored in the early stages of development. In this study, we aimed to investigate the number-action mapping during infancy with a novel action and to extend previous research by examining both size-action and quantity-action mappings. In the context of our study, 'size' is related to the perceptual attribute of how big or small an object appears and 'quantities' are connected to the numerical aspect, representing the number of items in a set. Using the habituation technique, 7-month-old infants were presented with videos of a character performing mouth openings directed towards objects of different sizes (Experiment 1; N = 40; 14 females) or quantities (Experiment 2; N = 40; 18 females). The findings suggest that infants are sensitive to the congruency of the pairings, highlighting the early presence of both number-action and size-action mappings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102153"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145208059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-26DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102129
Chiara Mazzocconi , Béatrice Priego-Valverde
The relationship between laughter, humour, and socio-cognitive development in infants has attracted scholarly attention, yet structured longitudinal studies remain sparse. This study examines humour appreciation and production in four North American children from the Providence Corpus (Demuth et al., 2006). We annotated 30 min of naturalistic mother–child interactions at six-month intervals (12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months). We identify 271 humorous episodes following two criteria (Archakis and Tsakona, 2005): (1) the presence of laughter and (2) the identification of an incongruity, i.e. Script Opposition (SO) (GTVH, Attardo (2001)). Each episode was analysed for SO type — im/possible, ab/normal, or non/actual—following Hempelmann and Ruch (2005) hierarchical framework. To explore the developmental relevance, we propose a classification of SOs by knowledge Domains: Natural World & Objects, Social-sphere, and Metalinguistic-sphere.
Findings reveal distinct SO and Domain distributions between mothers and children, developmental trajectories in SOs and Domains, and interactions between them. Between 12 and 30 months, children favoured humourous episodes involving multiple SOs, suggesting a need for multiple cues to interpret mothers’ humorous intent, potentially influencing maternal behaviour. Notably, our results contribute, together with previous studies, in refining McGhee (1979) humour developmental stages, showing that some types of humour emerge earlier than previously postulated. This study provides a detailed investigation of humour in child development from 12 to 36 months, illustrating how humour production and perception reflect cognitive, pragmatic, and linguistic development and offer insights into children’s knowledge acquisition — insights often challenging to access through experimental testing.
婴儿笑声、幽默和社会认知发展之间的关系引起了学术界的关注，但结构化的纵向研究仍然很少。本研究考察了来自普罗维登斯语料库的四个北美儿童的幽默欣赏和产生（Demuth et al, 2006）。我们每隔6个月（12、18、24、30和36个月）记录30分钟的自然母婴互动。我们根据两个标准（Archakis和Tsakona， 2005）确定了271个幽默情节：(1)笑声的存在；(2)不协调的识别，即剧本对立（SO） （GTVH, Attardo(2001)）。按照Hempelmann和Ruch（2005）的层次框架，对每一集进行SO类型分析——不可能、正常或非实际。为了探讨发展相关性，我们提出了一个知识领域分类的SOs：自然世界和对象，社会领域，和元语言领域。研究结果揭示了母亲和儿童之间不同的SO和Domain分布、SO和Domain的发展轨迹以及它们之间的相互作用。在12到30个月之间，孩子们更喜欢包含多个SOs的幽默情节，这表明需要多种线索来解释母亲的幽默意图，这可能会影响母亲的行为。值得注意的是，我们的研究结果与之前的研究一起，有助于提炼McGhee（1979）的幽默发展阶段，表明某些类型的幽默比之前假设的更早出现。本研究对12至36个月儿童的幽默发展进行了详细的调查，说明了幽默的产生和感知如何反映认知、语用和语言的发展，并为儿童的知识获取提供了见解——这些见解通常难以通过实验测试获得。
{"title":"Humour from 12 to 36 months: Insights into children’s socio-cognitive and language development","authors":"Chiara Mazzocconi , Béatrice Priego-Valverde","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102129","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102129","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The relationship between laughter, humour, and socio-cognitive development in infants has attracted scholarly attention, yet structured longitudinal studies remain sparse. This study examines humour appreciation and production in four North American children from the Providence Corpus (Demuth et al., 2006). We annotated 30 min of naturalistic mother–child interactions at six-month intervals (12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months). We identify 271 humorous episodes following two criteria (Archakis and Tsakona, 2005): (1) the presence of laughter and (2) the identification of an incongruity, i.e. <em>Script Opposition</em> (SO) (GTVH, Attardo (2001)). Each episode was analysed for SO type — im/possible, ab/normal, or non/actual—following Hempelmann and Ruch (2005) hierarchical framework. To explore the developmental relevance, we propose a classification of SOs by knowledge Domains: Natural World & Objects, Social-sphere, and Metalinguistic-sphere.</div><div>Findings reveal distinct SO and Domain distributions between mothers and children, developmental trajectories in SOs and Domains, and interactions between them. Between 12 and 30 months, children favoured humourous episodes involving multiple SOs, suggesting a need for multiple cues to interpret mothers’ humorous intent, potentially influencing maternal behaviour. Notably, our results contribute, together with previous studies, in refining McGhee (1979) humour developmental stages, showing that some types of humour emerge earlier than previously postulated. This study provides a detailed investigation of humour in child development from 12 to 36 months, illustrating how humour production and perception reflect cognitive, pragmatic, and linguistic development and offer insights into children’s knowledge acquisition — insights often challenging to access through experimental testing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102129"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145158337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-23DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102150
Linda Polka , M. Fernanda Alonso-Arteche , Nicola K. Phillips , Samin Moradi , Lucie Ménard , Matthew Masapollo
Infant vocalizations play a key role in infant behavior and development, yet we know very little about how infants perceive speech signals with infant vocal properties. In this perspective paper, we summarize recent developmental studies capitalizing on technical breakthroughs in speech synthesis that have allowed for rigorous exploration of this topic. The findings indicate that infants prefer to listen to speech signals with vocal resonances that specify a small, infant-sized vocal tract; this preference is robust and distinct in some ways from infants’ attraction to infant-directed speech. This infant talker bias may support infants’ speech recognition skills and there is growing evidence that it is also tied to infants’ own emerging vocal production abilities. These findings further validate prominent views of speech development, including the articulatory filter and the analysis-by-synthesis hypotheses. Related work in our lab shows that adults also display a strong attraction to infant vowel sounds, adding weight to calls for an expanded and multimodal infant schema. Converging evidence that both infants and adults find infant vocalizations appealing also provides critical support for the fitness-signaling perspective on infant endogenous vocalization. We argue that the infant talker bias has a positive impact on multiple levels, shaping receptive, expressive, and motivational aspects of infant development. The infant talker bias also plays a central role in caregiving behaviors and infant-directed speech. The perceptual potency of infant speech is a catalyst for infant development and also for meaningful and innovative research.
{"title":"Infants’ attraction to infant vocalizations – A catalyst for infant development","authors":"Linda Polka , M. Fernanda Alonso-Arteche , Nicola K. Phillips , Samin Moradi , Lucie Ménard , Matthew Masapollo","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102150","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102150","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Infant vocalizations play a key role in infant behavior and development, yet we know very little about how infants perceive speech signals with infant vocal properties. In this perspective paper, we summarize recent developmental studies capitalizing on technical breakthroughs in speech synthesis that have allowed for rigorous exploration of this topic. The findings indicate that infants prefer to listen to speech signals with vocal resonances that specify a small, infant-sized vocal tract; this preference is robust and distinct in some ways from infants’ attraction to infant-directed speech. This <em>infant talker bias</em> may support infants’ speech recognition skills and there is growing evidence that it is also tied to infants’ own emerging vocal production abilities. These findings further validate prominent views of speech development, including the articulatory filter and the analysis-by-synthesis hypotheses. Related work in our lab shows that adults also display a strong attraction to infant vowel sounds, adding weight to calls for an expanded and multimodal infant schema. Converging evidence that both infants and adults find infant vocalizations appealing also provides critical support for the fitness-signaling perspective on infant endogenous vocalization. We argue that the infant talker bias has a positive impact on multiple levels, shaping receptive, expressive, and motivational aspects of infant development. The infant talker bias also plays a central role in caregiving behaviors and infant-directed speech. The perceptual potency of infant speech is a catalyst for infant development and also for meaningful and innovative research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102150"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145118048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-19DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102151
Gianina Pérez , Annie Aitken , Maggie Zhang , Moriah E. Thomason , Natalie H. Brito
Maternal mental health during the perinatal period has been linked to the development of infant emotion regulation capacity, largely through its impact on caregiver-infant interactions during the first year of life. The majority of studies have focused on the effects of maternal depression, even though maternal anxiety is more prevalent and its effects on infant outcomes are less well understood. The current study aims to 1) explore differences in infant affect and regulatory behaviors across two commonly implemented infant stress-induction paradigms and 2) evaluate the differential effects of depression and anxiety on infant regulatory behaviors. Six-month-old infants and their mothers (N = 126) completed two tasks remotely in the home: the Arm Restraint task and the Still-Face Paradigm. Maternal depression and anxiety symptoms were measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) subscales. Within-person results indicated no significant associations among infant regulatory behaviors nor infant reactivity across the two paradigms. Additionally, no significant associations were found between maternal mental health and infant regulatory behaviors during the Still-Face Paradigm. However, higher EPDS composite scores were associated with fewer infant avoidance behaviors during the Arm Restraint task, and this result was driven by items on the anxiety subscale. These findings suggest that infant regulatory behaviors may differ depending on task used and may also be influenced by subclinical levels of maternal anxiety, but not maternal depression.
{"title":"Exploring associations between maternal mental health and infant regulatory behaviors at 6 months in the home environment: Zooming in on maternal anxiety","authors":"Gianina Pérez , Annie Aitken , Maggie Zhang , Moriah E. Thomason , Natalie H. Brito","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102151","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102151","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Maternal mental health during the perinatal period has been linked to the development of infant emotion regulation capacity, largely through its impact on caregiver-infant interactions during the first year of life. The majority of studies have focused on the effects of maternal depression, even though maternal anxiety is more prevalent and its effects on infant outcomes are less well understood. The current study aims to 1) explore differences in infant affect and regulatory behaviors across two commonly implemented infant stress-induction paradigms and 2) evaluate the differential effects of depression and anxiety on infant regulatory behaviors. Six-month-old infants and their mothers (N = 126) completed two tasks remotely in the home: the Arm Restraint task and the Still-Face Paradigm. Maternal depression and anxiety symptoms were measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) subscales. Within-person results indicated no significant associations among infant regulatory behaviors nor infant reactivity across the two paradigms. Additionally, no significant associations were found between maternal mental health and infant regulatory behaviors during the Still-Face Paradigm. However, higher EPDS composite scores were associated with fewer infant avoidance behaviors during the Arm Restraint task, and this result was driven by items on the anxiety subscale. These findings suggest that infant regulatory behaviors may differ depending on task used and may also be influenced by subclinical levels of maternal anxiety, but not maternal depression.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102151"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145096415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-18DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102149
Elizabeth A. Simpson
Growing empirical evidence from the past quarter century reveals surprising sociality in newborns—infants in the first 28 postnatal days—including their ability to elicit and sustain contingent interactions with mutual gaze, social smiling, and sensitively timed, speech-like vocalizations. Newborns seem to have communicative expectations and behave as if they predict others’ goal-directed actions. Despite these discoveries, I review key barriers to progress in newborn developmental science. First, newborn social behavior research has almost exclusively focused on “average” development—based primarily on White, wealthy, English-speaking, Western, populations—treating interindividual differences as noise rather than meaningful, variability. Focusing almost exclusively on averages, especially with small sample sizes, ignores interindividual differences and hinders discoveries. Second, there are few studies of newborn sociality beyond the first postnatal week. In part, this gap in our understanding may be due to, and a consequence of, the mischaracterizations of newborns’ behaviors as passive, limited, disorganized, and low-level reflexes that are subcortically driven. Finally, researchers often assume that newborns’ behaviors are largely independent of experience. To the contrary, newborns’ need for nearly continuous social contact provides them with rich social learning opportunities, which have been shown to have lasting impacts on their development. Given the uniqueness and plasticity of this period, and their high vulnerability, developmental scientists are doing newborns a disservice by neglecting to characterize their social repertoires within and across diverse populations. Awareness of newborns’ social capacities will facilitate a more objective, accurate view of their social potential.
{"title":"Rethinking the study of newborn sociality: Challenges and opportunities","authors":"Elizabeth A. Simpson","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102149","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102149","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Growing empirical evidence from the past quarter century reveals surprising sociality in newborns—infants in the first 28 postnatal days—including their ability to elicit and sustain contingent interactions with mutual gaze, social smiling, and sensitively timed, speech-like vocalizations. Newborns seem to have communicative expectations and behave as if they predict others’ goal-directed actions. Despite these discoveries, I review key barriers to progress in newborn developmental science. First, newborn social behavior research has almost exclusively focused on “average” development—based primarily on White, wealthy, English-speaking, Western, populations—treating interindividual differences as noise rather than meaningful, variability. Focusing almost exclusively on averages, especially with small sample sizes, ignores interindividual differences and hinders discoveries. Second, there are few studies of newborn sociality beyond the first postnatal week. In part, this gap in our understanding may be due to, and a consequence of, the mischaracterizations of newborns’ behaviors as passive, limited, disorganized, and low-level reflexes that are subcortically driven. Finally, researchers often assume that newborns’ behaviors are largely independent of experience. To the contrary, newborns’ need for nearly continuous social contact provides them with rich social learning opportunities, which have been shown to have lasting impacts on their development. Given the uniqueness and plasticity of this period, and their high vulnerability, developmental scientists are doing newborns a disservice by neglecting to characterize their social repertoires within and across diverse populations. Awareness of newborns’ social capacities will facilitate a more objective, accurate view of their social potential.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102149"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145092804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-16DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102136
Kelsey Davinson , Amy E. Learmonth , Kimberly Cuevas
Over the last quarter century, research on infant long-term memory has explored the complex, nuanced ways infants remember and how early memories shape interactions with the world. Pioneering investigations in the 1950s and 1960s revolutionized the study of infant cognition and memory. By 2000, foundational properties of infant memory were established via preferential looking, imitation, and operant conditioning paradigms. In the years since, research has advanced understanding of how infants encode, consolidate, and retrieve information across diverse situations. This body of work has revealed that infants possess memory capacities once thought to emerge later in development and that experience shapes both the duration and flexibility of memory. Systematic investigations of reminders have established the necessary and sufficient conditions for retrieval, emphasizing the roles of context, cue, and timing. Advances in behavioral and neuroimaging research, including sleep-based paradigms, have provided insights into memory consolidation during infancy. Recent studies have also broadened the scope of inquiry to include early learning and retention across various media, such as picture books, television, and touchscreens. However, debate continues regarding the nature of infant memory and whether different types of memory follow distinct developmental trajectories. This review outlines future research directions, including how intertwined learning, memory, and attention processes influence one another and are shaped by the dynamic and evolving niches that infants inhabit. Despite major progress, important questions remain unresolved, including the characterization and fate of our earliest memories.
{"title":"Infant long-term memory: The last quarter century and the next","authors":"Kelsey Davinson , Amy E. Learmonth , Kimberly Cuevas","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102136","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102136","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Over the last quarter century, research on infant long-term memory has explored the complex, nuanced ways infants remember and how early memories shape interactions with the world. Pioneering investigations in the 1950s and 1960s revolutionized the study of infant cognition and memory. By 2000, foundational properties of infant memory were established via preferential looking, imitation, and operant conditioning paradigms. In the years since, research has advanced understanding of how infants encode, consolidate, and retrieve information across diverse situations. This body of work has revealed that infants possess memory capacities once thought to emerge later in development and that experience shapes both the duration and flexibility of memory. Systematic investigations of reminders have established the necessary and sufficient conditions for retrieval, emphasizing the roles of context, cue, and timing. Advances in behavioral and neuroimaging research, including sleep-based paradigms, have provided insights into memory consolidation during infancy. Recent studies have also broadened the scope of inquiry to include early learning and retention across various media, such as picture books, television, and touchscreens. However, debate continues regarding the nature of infant memory and whether different types of memory follow distinct developmental trajectories. This review outlines future research directions, including how intertwined learning, memory, and attention processes influence one another and are shaped by the dynamic and evolving niches that infants inhabit. Despite major progress, important questions remain unresolved, including the characterization and fate of our earliest memories.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102136"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145082060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Empathic abilities serve important functions in social life, supporting the formation and maintenance of social bonds and motivating people to help others. Studying the early development of empathy is valuable, both for advancing theoretical understanding of empathy and for designing interventions to promote it. The past 25 years have seen increased interest in studying empathy development from birth to three, leading to substantial advancements in knowledge and theory, as well as to some ongoing debate. Here we review these developments. First, we provide an integrative overview of the main bottom-up and top-down processes involved in empathy, and the different responses they can yield. We then review accumulated knowledge regarding each of these component/subtypes of empathy during infancy and early childhood, by addressing: (i) The early development of vicarious emotional arousal; (ii) Cognitive empathy – understanding others’ emotions; (iii) When does other-oriented empathy emerge? An ongoing theoretical debate is presented, including the main points of disagreement and critical evaluation of empirical evidence; (iv) Development of more sophisticated forms of concern; and (v) Individual differences in early empathy. We conclude with a summary and important challenges and open questions for future research.
{"title":"Empathy development from birth to three: Advances in knowledge from 2000 to 2025","authors":"Maayan Davidov , Ronit Roth-Hanania , Yael Paz , Tal Orlitsky , Florina Uzefovsky , Carolyn Zahn-Waxler","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102144","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102144","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Empathic abilities serve important functions in social life, supporting the formation and maintenance of social bonds and motivating people to help others. Studying the early development of empathy is valuable, both for advancing theoretical understanding of empathy and for designing interventions to promote it. The past 25 years have seen increased interest in studying empathy development from birth to three, leading to substantial advancements in knowledge and theory, as well as to some ongoing debate. Here we review these developments. First, we provide an integrative overview of the main bottom-up and top-down processes involved in empathy, and the different responses they can yield. We then review accumulated knowledge regarding each of these component/subtypes of empathy during infancy and early childhood, by addressing: (i) The early development of vicarious emotional arousal; (ii) Cognitive empathy – understanding others’ emotions; (iii) When does other-oriented empathy emerge? An ongoing theoretical debate is presented, including the main points of disagreement and critical evaluation of empirical evidence; (iv) Development of more sophisticated forms of concern; and (v) Individual differences in early empathy. We conclude with a summary and important challenges and open questions for future research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102144"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145082091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-07DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102134
Georgia Cook , Anna Joyce , Chris Robus , Cristina Costantini
COVID-19 restrictions had a significant impact on family life, including daily activities and routines. This study aimed to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s sleep and feeding behaviours, through undertaking reflexive thematic analysis of parents' open-text box responses to survey questions related to their child’s sleep and feeding practices during COVID-19 restrictions. Six hundred and ninety one parents of children aged 0–24 months old who were living in the United Kingdom completed an online questionnaire between 14th December 2020 and 15th January 2021. Results suggested that the pandemic resulted in specific contemporaneous changes to feeding and sleep practices. Specifically, for feeding there were positives around an extension to breastfeeding but this was alongside a negative perception of increased breastfeeding demand. For sleep practices, parents reported primarily negative implications of poorer child sleep and an increase in reactive bedsharing. Overall there were some positive implications on general practices which impacted both sleep and feeding, including providing the opportunity for parents to make beneficial adjustments such as to their routines. However, there were also clear negative implications around practical challenges and a lack of formal and informal help and support. This is the first study to explore the impact of the pandemic and its associated restrictions (which offered a unique snapshot in time, unable to be experimentally replicated) on infant and toddler sleeping and feeding practices. Findings have implications beyond the pandemic as they provide an illustration of the ways in which parents, if afforded with favourable circumstances such as additional time, flexibility, a reduction in perceived pressure and social stigma may seek to change their child’s sleeping and feeding practices. In addition, specific child sleep and feeding behaviours which parents struggled with and may benefit from additional help and support in a post-pandemic context to contribute to children’s development and well-being are highlighted.
{"title":"A qualitative exploration of parents’ experiences of infant and toddler sleep and feeding during the United Kingdom COVID-19 lockdown(s)","authors":"Georgia Cook , Anna Joyce , Chris Robus , Cristina Costantini","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102134","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102134","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>COVID-19 restrictions had a significant impact on family life, including daily activities and routines. This study aimed to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s sleep and feeding behaviours, through undertaking reflexive thematic analysis of parents' open-text box responses to survey questions related to their child’s sleep and feeding practices during COVID-19 restrictions. Six hundred and ninety one parents of children aged 0–24 months old who were living in the United Kingdom completed an online questionnaire between 14th December 2020 and 15th January 2021. Results suggested that the pandemic resulted in specific contemporaneous changes to feeding and sleep practices. Specifically, for feeding there were positives around an extension to breastfeeding but this was alongside a negative perception of increased breastfeeding demand. For sleep practices, parents reported primarily negative implications of poorer child sleep and an increase in reactive bedsharing. Overall there were some positive implications on general practices which impacted both sleep and feeding, including providing the opportunity for parents to make beneficial adjustments such as to their routines. However, there were also clear negative implications around practical challenges and a lack of formal and informal help and support. This is the first study to explore the impact of the pandemic and its associated restrictions (which offered a unique snapshot in time, unable to be experimentally replicated) on infant and toddler sleeping and feeding practices. Findings have implications beyond the pandemic as they provide an illustration of the ways in which parents, if afforded with favourable circumstances such as additional time, flexibility, a reduction in perceived pressure and social stigma may seek to change their child’s sleeping and feeding practices. In addition, specific child sleep and feeding behaviours which parents struggled with and may benefit from additional help and support in a post-pandemic context to contribute to children’s development and well-being are highlighted.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102134"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145008561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-07DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102135
Brianna K. Hunter , Erim Kızıldere , Shannon M. Klotz , Christian M. Nelson , Julie Markant , Lisa M. Oakes
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the primary view of infant visual attention development focused on a transition across the first postnatal year from being stimulus-driven to goal-driven, reflecting a broader shift from subcortical to cortical control. This perspective was supported by decades of infant looking-time studies. However, our understanding of infant attention has significantly evolved over the past 25 years, shaped by both theoretical advancements and new technological and methodological tools. Researchers now understand that attention development reflects multiple interacting systems that have cascading effects across time. The availability of infant-suitable eye-tracking methods have allowed researchers to consider multiple aspects of attention by precisely measuring when and where infants look, emerging quantitative models of stimulus saliency and computational models of the visual system have deepened our understanding of bottom-up and top-down influences on infant attention, and new methods to evaluate infants’ egocentric views have allowed researchers to measure attention in naturalistic contexts. Thus, these innovations allowed us to address questions that were unthinkable 25 years ago. Here, we discuss how these advances have transformed our understanding of infant attention development and outline key directions for future research, paving the way for even more exciting discoveries in the next 25 years.
{"title":"What have we learned about infant visual attention in the first 25 years of the 21st century?","authors":"Brianna K. Hunter , Erim Kızıldere , Shannon M. Klotz , Christian M. Nelson , Julie Markant , Lisa M. Oakes","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102135","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102135","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the primary view of infant visual attention development focused on a transition across the first postnatal year from being stimulus-driven to goal-driven, reflecting a broader shift from subcortical to cortical control. This perspective was supported by decades of infant looking-time studies. However, our understanding of infant attention has significantly evolved over the past 25 years, shaped by both theoretical advancements and new technological and methodological tools. Researchers now understand that attention development reflects multiple interacting systems that have cascading effects across time. The availability of infant-suitable eye-tracking methods have allowed researchers to consider multiple aspects of attention by precisely measuring <em>when</em> and <em>where</em> infants look, emerging quantitative models of stimulus saliency and computational models of the visual system have deepened our understanding of bottom-up and top-down influences on infant attention, and new methods to evaluate infants’ egocentric views have allowed researchers to measure attention in naturalistic contexts. Thus, these innovations allowed us to address questions that were unthinkable 25 years ago. Here, we discuss how these advances have transformed our understanding of infant attention development and outline key directions for future research, paving the way for even more exciting discoveries in the next 25 years.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102135"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145008568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-01DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102133
Ming Wai Wan , Shoba S. Meera , Meghan R. Swanson
{"title":"Emerging neurodivergence in infancy and toddlerhood","authors":"Ming Wai Wan , Shoba S. Meera , Meghan R. Swanson","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102133","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102133","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"80 ","pages":"Article 102133"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144993930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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