Wentworth, N., & Haith, M. M. (1992). Event-specific expectations of 2-and 3-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology, 28(5), 842.

The Visual Expectation Paradigm (M. M. Haith et al, 1988) was modified to assess the role that picture content plays in the spatiotemporal expectations of 2- and 3-mo-old infants. Infants watched pictures of 700-msec duration that appeared in left–right alternation with a 1,000-msec interstimulus interval. The same picture occurred repeatedly on one side, in alternation with an unpredictable picture on the other side. Across 3 studies, the unchanging picture, rather than engendering habituation, produced higher levels of anticipation and speeded reactions. Thus, infants used the stable picture-content information to facilitate formation of expectations about when and where pictures would appear. Although 2-mo-olds were consistently slower than 3-mo-olds, their reaction times (RTs) benefited more from predictability than did the RTs of older infants. The percentage of anticipatory fixations did not differ between the 2 age groups.

 

 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.28.5.842