ABSTRACT
The number and quality of the infant's accomplishments in the first year of life will probably never be equalled in any subsequent developmental period. From an experimenter's point of view, it is puzzling that these accomplishments are achieved in what could best be described as a variable and complex environment. In the laboratory, we usually attempt to maximize the opportunity for learning by eliminating multiple and presumably extraneous sources of stimulation and by removing all response opportunities other than the opportunity for the target response. The result of these efforts has been a relatively poor record of documenting the wealth and variety of the infant's early accomplishments. Paradoxically, the lack of success in laboratory demonstrations of infant learning has for almost two decades been widely accepted as evidence of the young infant's inability to learn under the more variable conditions of his natural setting: “… it is clear that newly born human infants can learn some responses under certain specific conditions. How much they actually do learn in every-day life is another matter” (Sluckin, 1970, p. 32).
