Observed weekly 13 infants from 1 to 6 months of age to determine when they produced different types of smiling and other facial expressions. Found that the cheek-raise and open-mouth dimensions of smiling appear to be associated with, respectively, amplification of processes of sharing positive affect and of visual engagement present to a lesser…

Examined the effect of a family-oriented early childhood intervention program for low birth weight premature infants and their mothers. Found that the intervention decreased maternal distress, especially for women with less than a high school education. Maternal distress did not moderate or mediate the influence of the intervention on child…

Examined content of explanations from 4 children in everyday conversations recorded from 2.5 to 5 years of age. Found that explanations focused on varied entities and incorporated diverse modes. Pairings of entities with explanatory modes suggested appropriately constrained yet flexible causal reasoning, consistent with hypothesis that young…

Investigated from a dynamic systems perspective mutual regulation during naturalistic interaction of mothers with their 4-month-olds. Found that mothers and infants communicated primarily through vocal signals and responses. Levels of contingent responsiveness between partners were significantly associated and occurred within distinct behavioral…

Examined in 2 studies 2- to 4-year-olds' learning of novel words and novel facts and extension of the words and facts to additional exemplars. Found that children extended the novel word to more category members than they extended the novel fact. By age 2, children observe extendibility of novel count nouns but are uncertain about extendibility of…

Investigated stability and change in infant affective responses to still-face interaction, impact of maternal depression, and whether infant responses predicted toddler problem behaviors. Found stable individual differences in gazing away and rates of negative affect. Gazing away increased over time. Mothers' current depressive symptoms and…

Examined changes from age 7 to 82 years in processes responsible for preparation and interference control underlying alternation between two tasks. Found a U-shaped function for switch costs, with larger costs for young children and older adults. Age-related variance in task-switching performance was partially independent from age-related variance…

Two studies investigated linguistic representations underlying English-speaking 2.5-year-olds' production of transitive utterances. Findings indicated that children trained with pronouns and nouns could produce a transitive utterance creatively with a novel verb. Results suggest that English-speaking children build many of their early linguistic…

Used drawings and questionnaires to investigate development of images of "a Jew" and "an Arab" among Jewish Israeli 4- to 15-year-olds. Found that preschoolers expressed positive biases toward the in-group and negativism toward the out-group. Early adolescents manifested mainly negative biases toward the out-group. Children in middle childhood and…

Calm or crying 9- and 12-week-olds sat facing a researcher who gazed into their eyes or at their forehead and delivered either a sucrose solution or pacifier or delivered nothing. Found that combining sweet taste and eye contact was necessary and sufficient for calm 9- and 12-week-olds to form a preference for the researcher, but not for crying…

This longitudinal study examined reciprocal growth in negative emotions between parents and adolescents, and their potential influence on the development of social relationships during early adulthood. Findings showed that both parents' and adolescents' initial levels of negative emotion toward each other predicted the rate of growth and rate of…

Preschoolers viewed stimulus sets comprised of a sample picture and three types of matches and were asked to choose a match that "went with" each sample. Children's choices indicated that a shift occurs between 3 and 4 years of age from a taxonomic bias to a thematic bias. Animate sample stimuli enhanced children's tendency to adopt thematic…

Used data on parenting and family climate gathered six times during childhood and adolescence to predict intergenerational relations between young adult children and parents. Found that more supportive family environments and child-rearing experiences forecasted more positive parent-child relationships in young adulthood. Effects of unsupportive…

Examined interaction of preschoolers' manageability problems and maternal discipline for predicting 10-year-old boys' antisocial behavior. Found that maternal retrospective perceptions of unmanageability predicted observed maternal discipline practices. Level of temper tantrums interacted with maternal discipline in predicting change in teacher…

Investigated 4-month-olds' responsiveness to others' affective expressions in the context of a peekaboo game. Found differential patterns of visual attention and affective responsiveness to happiness/surprise, anger, fear, and sadness. Findings underscore importance of contextual information for facilitating recognition of emotion expressions and…