Impact of Stimulus "Value" in Infant Novelty Preference

Much research indicates that by 5 months of age, infants prefer novel over familiar stimuli. The purpose of the present paper is to detennine whether novelty preference in infants can be manipulated through stimulus association. Therefore, the role of stimulus "value" in infant novelty preference was investigated. Five-month-old infants were randomly assigned to two groups. In the experimental group, a classical conditioning analogue procedure was employed where a neutral tone was associated with a picture of mother's face (over 100 trials). In the control group, infants received 100 presentations of the tone alone. A posttest was administered to both groups to measure infants' preference between the tone presented during familiarization and a novel tone. Results indicated that in the experimental group, infants preferred the familiar over the novel tone, whereas, in the control group, infants preferred the novel over the familiar tone. Thus, it appears that the mother's value was conferred onto the tone. These results provide evidence that an associated value to a neutral stimulus can actually override novelty preference