Biomaterial Database

Infants' attentional responses to frequency modulated sweeps. 1986

J Colombo, and F D Horowitz

In 3 experiments, the attentional responses of 4-month-old infants to frequency-modulated (FM) sweeps corresponding to the frequency range of adult-to-infant and adult-to-adult intonation patterns were assessed. In Experiment 1, infants were observed to discriminate "exaggerated" (i.e., adult-to-infant) FM sweeps from "normal" (i.e., adult-to-adult) FM sweeps in a habituation-dishabituation paradigm but did not selectively attend to one over the other. In Experiment 2, where the same stimuli were used in a paired-comparison paradigm, again no differential attention was observed. In Experiment 3, the most exaggerated sweep was paired against a continuous, monotonic pure tone, but again no difference in salience was observed. These data suggest that the extent of modulation or intonation of an auditory stimulus per se does not constitute a salient cue for infants' attention to sound.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D007223	Infant	A child between 1 and 23 months of age.	Infants
D010364	Pattern Recognition, Visual	Mental process to visually perceive a critical number of facts (the pattern), such as characters, shapes, displays, or designs.	Recognition, Visual Pattern,Visual Pattern Recognition
D010897	Pitch Discrimination	The ability to differentiate sound frequency or pitch.	Discrimination, Pitch,Pitch Discriminations
D002666	Psychology, Child	Branch of psychology involving the study of normal and abnormal behavior of children.	Child Psychology,Infant Psychology,Pediatric Psychology,Psychology, Infant,Psychology, Pediatric
D006185	Habituation, Psychophysiologic	The disappearance of responsiveness to a repeated stimulation. It does not include drug habituation.	Habituation (Psychophysiology),Habituation, Psychophysiological,Psychophysiologic Habituation,Psychophysiological Habituation,Habituations (Psychophysiology)
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D001143	Arousal	Cortical vigilance or readiness of tone, presumed to be in response to sensory stimulation via the reticular activating system.	Vigilance, Cortical,Arousals,Cortical Vigilance
D001288	Attention	Focusing on certain aspects of current experience to the exclusion of others. It is the act of heeding or taking notice or concentrating.	Focus of Attention,Selective Attention,Social Attention,Attention Focus,Attention, Selective,Attention, Social,Selective Attentions