ABSTRACT
The second transition in the first year, which occurs in most healthy infants between 7 and 12 months, is accompanied by cognitive functions that depend more on the frontal lobe and its enhanced connectivity with other brain sites. Knowledge of the biological changes, without any psychological information, would not permit prediction of the accompanying psychological competences. However, joint appreciation of both the emerging behaviors, especially fear of unfamiliar events and imitation, and the biology, suggest that, after 7 months, infants can retrieve schemata for past events no longer in the perceptual field and hold them and their current perception in working memory while they try to assimilate the latter to the former.
