Stimulus-schema discrepancy and attention in the infant

Abstract

An attempt was made to establish experimentally a new schema in infants by exposing them to a standard stimulus between their third- and fourth-month birthdays. The discrepancy hypothesis was tested by presenting the stimulus-experienced infants and a group of nonexperienced controls with the standard stimulus and three graded discrepancies from it. Magnitude of cardiac deceleration was an increasing function of discrepancy for girls but not for boys. Stimulus differences in fixation time were minimal for both sexes. The results for females supported the discrepancy hypothesis as well as the construct validity of cardiac deceleration as an index of the dynamic process of matching a new input to a schema.