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12 - Newborn behavior and perception

from Section 2 - Sensory systems and behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2011

By
Elena V Kushnerenko  and
Mark H. Johnson
Edited by
Hugo Lagercrantz ,
M. A. Hanson ,
Laura R. Ment  and
Donald M. Peebles
Hugo Lagercrantz
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm
M. A. Hanson
Affiliation:
Southampton General Hospital
Laura R. Ment
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Donald M. Peebles
Affiliation:
University College London
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Summary

Introduction

Traditionally, the behavior of human newborns has been considered to be essentially reflexive over the first few weeks of life. However, more recently evidence has accumulated to indicate that newborns are already well equipped to acquire and learn information rapidly. In addition, through prenatal learning and other mechanisms, newborns are biased to orient and attend to specific types of information that will become of high relevance to their future learning and survival. In this chapter, we begin by outlining evidence for the learning abilities of newborns, before discussing some domains for which there is evidence that newborns have specific biases or abilities.

Two abilities that are already present at birth are orienting to novelty and habituation to repeated stimuli. These processes can be revealed by registering changes in newborns' looking and sucking behavior. Cardiac and brain activity measures, when incorporated in careful experimental design, may also shed light on newborns' brain function.

Orienting

Orienting towards new stimuli is not only essential for the survival of any organism, it is also a key prerequisite of learning. Therefore, it is of primary importance for neonates. The orienting reflex is a combination of overt and covert responses associated with searching for and preferential processing of new information (Pavlov, 1927; Sokolov, 1963; Sokolov et al., 2002).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Newborn Brain
Neuroscience and Clinical Applications
 , pp. 185 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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