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The use of habituation in the study of the effects of infantile malnutrition
Author(s) -
Lester Barry M.,
Klein Robert E.,
Martinez Sonia J.
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.420080611
Subject(s) - habituation , stimulus (psychology) , malnutrition , audiology , psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , pediatrics , cognitive psychology
Habituation of the orienting response (OR) was used to assess possible attentional deficits associated with infantile malnutrition. The procedure involved the presentation of 40 trials of a pure tone stimulus to 8 marginally nourished and 8 malnourished 13 1/2‐month‐old male infants. The results showed that the initial OR to stimulus onset, as measured by the magnitude of cardiac deceleration, was significantly larger in marginally nourished than in malnourished infants. Within‐group comparisons revealed that marginally nourished infants showed significant increases in OR magnitude to changes in tonal frequency whereas the malnourished infants did not. The results were taken as evidence of an attentional deficit associated with infantile malnutrition that is likely to interfere with subsequent learning.