ABSTRACT
Information gathering refers to the infant's selection or rejection of specific visual events. Habituation is an example of an "exposure learning" whereby the organism comes to gain information through repeated exposure with some sensory event. Demonstration of habituation indicates that storage and processing of information are part of the functional repertoire of the organism. The habituation paradigm therefore seems to be a valuable experimental procedure in investigating early discrimination and memory in the nonverbal human infant. D. N. Stern relates the process of habituation to early interactive relations between mother and infant. An infant whose visual behavior presents inconsistent and erratic cues or signals for interaction may also trigger inappropriate caretaker responses, thus starting a cycle that could be dysfunctional in regard to later development. In conclusion, basic research on the areas of visual attention and habituation may lead to development of early assessment techniques for detecting aberrant discrimination capacities and memory functioning.
