Abstract
The distribution of attention to different magnitudes of discrepancy from a familiarized standard was studied in infant boys, 5 1/2 months of age. Attention in terms of cardiac deceleration was found to vary as a function of magnitude of discrepancy, and the pattern was consistent with that predicted by the discrepancy hypothesis. Further, habituation to the repeatedly presented standard stimulus in terms of first fixation time (but not cardiac deceleration) predicted the extent of the infants’ response to discrepancies as reflected in both of these response measures.
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This research was supported by Grant HD-03110 to the Univenity of North Carolina Child Development Research Inatitute, by USPHS Grants 05537 and 00222 to the Fels Research Institute, by Grants HD-03642 and HD-04160 to the first author, and by a grant from the Faculty Research Council at the Univeility of North Carolina. The authors thank Lynne Christensen, Mary Chronister, Carl Corter, Chriatina Garratt, June Gregg, Jerome Kagan, Paul Obrist, Katherine Pryor, Anne Saravo, Pamela Savoy, Roger Webb, and Miriam Young for their usistance and comments.
An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03332377.
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McCall, R.B., Melson, W.H. Attention in infants as a function of magnitude of discrepancy and habituation rate. Psychon Sci 17, 317–318 (1969). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335257
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335257