Child and Family Development across the First Two Decades of Life

四项研究说明了正在进行的CFRS调查的范围。对象识别和分类的核心挑战之一是识别和组织与类别相关的对象的能力，而不依赖于它们的方向、它们在视野中的位置等等。为了使物体感知和认知以任何程度的组织、秩序或一致性进行，必须超越生物和环境的变化。分类是解决生物不稳定性和环境多样性带来的挑战的关键和适应性解决方案。类别指的是相似但（通常）可区分的实体的共同表征，当生物体平等地对待（可区分的）不同实体时，类别就显现出来了。分类允许跨越经验的泛化，因为分类将经验实体彼此联系起来，并将它们与心理表征联系起来。分类在很多方面调节着我们与世界的互动。它们构建和澄清感知和认知；它们便于信息的存储和检索；它们提供了一种组织原则，通过这种原则，新信息可以有效地存储在内存中。第一次遇到的实体可以被视为唯一的实体，或者，如果采用分类方法，则可以与以前遇到的与之相似的实体以相同的方式处理。分类还用于概括来自同一类别的新遇到的实体。关于一个类别的知识提供了对整个新实体的期望，以及对新实体的特征的期望。因此，分类是大脑赋予感官刺激意义的一个基本过程，分类对于快速、适当地选择行为反应至关重要。分类在婴儿期特别有意义和价值；如果没有分类的能力，孩子们将不得不重新学习他们所经历的每一个新的实体。因此，了解儿童最初如何分类是理解人类认知和发展的基础。婴儿进行分类的基本过程是什么？一种可能性是，婴儿在遇到与类别相关的实体并积累经验时，会在线进行分类；第二种可能是婴儿在形成类别时依赖于先前对实体的经验。我们对这些选择进行了实验测试，发现在实验室熟悉了从未见过的物体类别的5个月大的婴儿随后将同一类别的新物体视为熟悉的-也就是说，婴儿在网上分类-就像5个月大的婴儿在家里暴露于同一类别的物体2个月导致他们在实验室对物体分类的评估一样。然而，有家庭类别经验的婴儿也提供了证据，表明他们从一开始就认识到新的类别对象是熟悉的，也就是说，先前的类别范例经验被带到实验室任务中。即使是在很短的时间内，学龄前的婴儿似乎也能对完全陌生的物体进行分类，而且婴儿还表现出他们能记住并应用基于经验学到的类别。

Four studies illustrate the range of investigations underway in the CFRS. One of the central challenges of object identification and categorization is the ability to recognize and organize category-related objects independent of their orientation, where they appear in the visual field, and so forth. For object perception and cognition to proceed with any degree of organization, order, or coherence, both biological and environmental variation must be transcended. Categorization constitutes a critical and adaptive solution to the challenges posed by both biological instability and environmental diversity. Categories refer to shared representations of like, but (usually) discriminable, entities, and are in evidence when organisms treat (discriminably) different entities equivalently. Categorization allows generalization across experience, because categorization relates experienced entities to one another and to their mental representation. Categories mediate our interactions with the world in many ways. They structure and clarify perception and cognition; they facilitate the storage and retrieval of information; and they supply a principle of organization by which new information is banked efficiently in memory. An entity that is encountered for the first time could be treated as unique or, if categorization is brought to bear, in the same way as previously encountered entities that it resembles. Categorization is also used to generalize about newly encountered entities from the same category. Knowledge about a category affords expectations about novel entities in toto as well as about features of novel entities. Categorization is thus a fundamental process by which the brain assigns meaning to sensory stimuli, and categorization is critical for rapidly and appropriately selecting behavioral responses. Categories are especially meaningful and valuable in infancy; without the ability to categorize, children would have to learn anew each novel entity they experience. In consequence, insights into how children first categorize are fundamental to understanding human cognition and development. What basic processes do infants employ in categorizing? One possibility is that infants categorize on line as they encounter and accrue experience with category-related entities; a second possibility is that infants depend on prior experience with entities in formulating categories. We experimentally tested these alternatives and found that 5-month infants who were familiarized in the laboratory with a category of never-before-seen objects subsequently treated novel objects of the same category as familiar -- that is, infants categorized on line -- just as did 5-month infants who were exposed to objects from the same category at home for 2 months leading to their assessment of object categorization in the laboratory. However, infants with home experience with the category also gave evidence that they recognized novel category objects as familiar from the outset that is, prior experience with category exemplars was brought to bear in laboratory tasks. Young preverbal infants appear to categorize entirely novel objects as they encounter them over even brief amounts of time, and infants also show they remember and apply categories learned on the basis of experience. A second study assessed specificity in parenting. Responsiveness defines the prompt, contingent, and appropriate reactions parents display to their children in the context of everyday exchanges. Maternal responsiveness occupies a theoretically central position in developmental science and possesses meaningful predictive validity over diverse domains of childrens development, yet basic psychometric features of maternal responsiveness are still poorly understood. In this prospective longitudinal study, we examined structure, individual variation, and continuity of multiple dimensions of responsiveness in mothers to their infants activities at 10, 14, and 21 months during natural home-based play interactions. Both age-general and age-specific patterns emerged in maternal responding. Our developmental results support the multidimensionality, modularity, and specificity of this central parenting construct. A third study employed a cross-national framework to examine country, region, and gender differences in emotional availability, a prominent index of mutual socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Argentine, Italian, and U.S. American mothers and their daughters and sons from both rural and metropolitan areas took part in home observations at 20 months. In terms of country, Italian mothers were more sensitive and optimally structuring, and Italian children were more responsive and involving, than Argentine and U.S. dyads. In terms of region, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and boys from metropolitan areas were more responsive than boys from rural areas. In terms of gender, mothers of girls were more sensitive and optimally structuring than mothers of boys, and daughters were more responsive and involving than sons. Understanding how country, region, and gender influence emotional availability exposes forces that shape child development, parent-infant interaction, and family systems. A fourth study focused on emotional regulation in infants of clinically depressed mothers. Emotion regulation has been conceptualized as an ongoing process of the individuals emotion patterns in relation to moment-to-moment contextual demands. In contrast to traditional approaches of descriptively quantizing emotional regulation, we employed a dynamic approach to emotional regulation by examining key transitions in infants of clinically depressed and nondepressed mothers in the context of maternal still-face. Mothers with and without a clinical diagnosis of depression were seen with their 5-month-olds. Infant states and self-soothing behaviors were coded in 1-s time intervals. Infants of nondepressed mothers used attentional regulatory strategies, whereas infants of depressed mothers used internally directed strategies of self-soothing to reduce negativity and maintain engagement with mother. This study advances our understanding of processes underlying infant emotional regulation and points to possible mechanisms for the development of long-term maladaptive emotional regulation strategies in infants of depressed mothers.