[The effects of the contingence during the visual habituation task in 3 and 6 months old infants]

Thirty-six 3-month old infants and the same number of 6-month old infants underwent three visual habituation procedures differentiated by degree of behavioural contingency. Results showed significant differences between conditions only for the six-month olds: the lower the contingency, the higher the visual fixation scores. Results support some of the propositions that Gergely and Watson (1996, 1999) have put forth regarding the developmental model for detecting contingencies. The results also challenge the traditional model for visual habituation which suggests that varied durations of visual fixation should basically be determined by the visual characteristics of the stimulus.