Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socio-emotional development in infancy is primarily shaped by early emotional responses and social connections, with temperament playing a central role. Temperament refers to the consistent patterns in an individual's emotional and behavioral responses, observable even in infancy. By examining temperament, researchers can better understand an infant's unique ways of interacting with the world, influencing subsequent personality and socio-emotional growth.
Primary Temperament Types

Techniques of therapeutic communication I: Active Listening, Sharing Observations, Validation, and Using Touch

Techniques of therapeutic communication I: Active Listening, Sharing Observations, Validation, and Using Touch

The history of therapeutic communication can be traced back to Florence Nightingale, who emphasized the importance of developing trusting relationships with patients. She taught that the presence of nurses with patients results in therapeutic healing.
Therapeutic communication is not the same as social interaction. Social interaction has no goal or purpose and consists of casual information sharing, whereas therapeutic communication has a plan or purpose for the conversation. Therapeutic...

Language Development

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...

Relationship with Parents: Attachment

Relationship with Parents: Attachment

Parent-child interactions lay the foundation for how we understand relationships throughout life. These interactions are not uniform across families; instead, they are shaped by a range of environmental, emotional, and behavioral factors unique to each caregiver-child dynamic. Social psychologists study these early relationships to understand how patterns formed in infancy influence social functioning and interpersonal behavior in adulthood.Attachment Theory and Early Relational ModelsJohn...

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
Exploration...

Attachment

Attachment

Attachment is vital for infant development, as warm social interactions support growth and well-being. In a classic 1958 study by Harry Harlow, the significance of warmth and comfort in forming attachments was examined. Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers and provided two artificial "mothers": one made of cold wire and the other covered in soft cloth. Despite the wire mother offering food, the infant monkeys preferred the comfort of the cloth mother, demonstrating that...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

English-hearing toddlers learn words from consistent and variable labels.

Cognition·2026

Same author

Performance and Biases of the LENA and ACLEW Algorithms in Analyzing Language Environments in Down, Fragile X, Angelman Syndromes, and Populations at Elevated Likelihood for Autism.

Developmental science·2026

Same author

Exploring Variation in Infants' Preference for Infant-directed Speech: Evidence From a Multi-Site Study in Africa.

Developmental science·2026

Same author

What 5000 babies can tell us about developing minds and how to study them.

Communications psychology·2026

Same author

Bilingual Families Align Their Languages During Naturalistic Interactions: Evidence from Two Bilingual Communities.

Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland)·2026

Same author

Navigating Knowledge: Effects of State Curiosity on Children's Word Learning and Information Seeking.

Developmental science·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 20, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Social touch interacts with infants' learning of auditory patterns.

Casey Lew-Williams¹, Brock Ferguson², Rana Abu-Zhaya³

¹Department of Psychology, Princeton University, USA.

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

|October 21, 2017

Summary

Touch from caregivers helps infants learn auditory patterns. This study shows that multisensory redundancy, particularly touch, aids infant learning of environmental structures, highlighting the importance of caregiver interactions.

Keywords:

Auditory learning Intersensory redundancy Social touch Statistical learning

More Related Videos

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

Published on: May 3, 2017

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Feb 20, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG

Published on: May 3, 2017

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Area of Science:

Developmental Psychology
Intersensory Perception
Auditory Learning

Background:

Infants process multiple sensory inputs simultaneously in social contexts.
Caregiver touch is a constant element in early development, influencing infant experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how tactile input from caregivers influences infants' ability to learn patterns in auditory information.
To determine if intersensory redundancy between touch and sound aids infant pattern recognition.

Main Methods:

Three laboratory experiments were conducted with infants.
Naturalistic caregiver-infant interactions were recorded and analyzed.
Infants listened to tone sequences (e.g., ABA) while receiving time-locked touch cues.

Main Results:

Intersensory redundant touch significantly enhanced infants' learning of tone patterns.
The effectiveness of touch cues in supporting learning was modulated by the typicality of touch sequences in infants' daily lives.
Infants demonstrated an ability to track and utilize touch patterns for auditory learning.

Conclusions:

Infants actively monitor tactile input from caregivers.
Touch serves as a valuable intersensory cue for infants to discover structure and patterns in their environment.
Caregiver touch plays a crucial role in supporting early auditory learning and cognitive development.