Examining in infancy: Does it reflect active processing?

Two studies explored whether sustained attention during infants' object exploration, or examining, reflects more active processing than do other components of attention. In Experiment 1, infants examined complex objects more than simple ones and novel objects more than familiar ones. In addition, 7-month-olds examined objects more than did 10-month-olds. Looking that did not involve examining did not vary systematically with either complexity or age. These findings suggest that infants' examining is related to the amount of information to be processed. Experiment 2 tested this hypothesis more directly by evaluating how distractible 7- and 10-month-olds were during examining as compared with nonexamining phases of attention