Development of manipulatory skills and the deployment of attention

Journal/Book: Infant Behav Develop. 1995; 18: 355 Chestnut St, Norwood, NJ 07648. Ablex Publ Corp. 391-405.

Abstract: Two independent tasks, object manipulation and auditory-visual matching, were used to examine the relationship between developing manual action skills and attention to intermodal object properties in 3.5- and 5.5-month-olds. Although handling skills improved with age, with older infants demonstrating more varied manipulation, there were no age differences for the matching task. When grouped by handling skills, a significant interaction between skill and event type was found for the two age groups combined and for 5.5-month-olds alone. Auditory-visual matching of social events did not vary with handling skills, whereas auditory-visual matching of object events did. Infants at higher skill levels responded similarly to social and object events, whereas less skilled infants' matching preferences were weaker for object events. These findings indicate that infants increase their attention to auditory and visual properties of objects as this information becomes useful for guiding new actions. This effect is independent of age due to considerable individual variability in the development of object handling skills.

Note: Article MA Eppler, E Carolina Univ, Dept Psychol, Greenville, NC 27858 USA

Keyword(s): intermodal perception; object manipulation; attention; auditory-visual matching; manual action skills; object properties; infants; INFANTS INTERMODAL PERCEPTION; BIMODALLY SPECIFIED EVENTS; TO-FACE INTERACTION; EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIORS; 4-MONTH-OLD INFANTS; TEMPORAL STRUCTURE; EXPLORATION; KNOWLEDGE; COMMUNICATION; COORDINATION

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