| autostimulation theory | The theory that during REM sleep the infant's brain stimulates itself and that this, in turn, stimulates early development of the central nervous system.
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| Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale | A scale containing a battery of tests used to measure an infant's sensory and perceptual capabilities, motor development, range of states, and ability to regulate these states, as well as whether the brain and central nervous system are properly regulating involuntary responses.
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| colic | A prolonged period of unexplained crying by an infant.
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| habituation | A process of learning by which an individual reacts with less and less intensity to a repeatedly presented stimulus, eventually responding only faintly or not at all.
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| infant state | A recurring pattern of arousal in the newborn, ranging from alert, vigorous, wakeful activity to quiet, regular sleep.
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| intermodal perception | The use of sensory information from more than one modality to identify a stimulus and make sense of it; also, the identification of a stimulus already identified by means of one modality by the use of another modality.
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| neonate | A newborn baby.
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| perception | The interpretation of sensations to make them meaningful.
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| reflex | A human's involuntary response to external stimulation.
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| REM sleep | REM, or rapid eye movement, sleep is characterized by rapid, jerky movements of the eyes and, in adults, is often associated with dreaming.
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| sensation | The detection of stimuli by the sensory receptors.
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| shape constancy | The ability to perceive an object's shape as constant despite changes in its orientation and the angle from which one views it.
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| size constancy | The tendency to perceive an object as constant in size regardless of changes in its distance from the viewer and in the image it casts on the retinas of the eyes.
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| stereoscopic vision | The sense of a third spatial dimension, that of depth, produced by the brain's fusion of the separate images contributed by each eye, each of which reflects the stimulus from a slightly different angle.
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| sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) | The sudden, unexplained death of an infant while sleeping; also called crib death.
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| visual acuity | Sharpness of vision; the clarity with which fine details can be detected.
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| visual cliff | An apparatus that tests an infant's depth perception by using patterned materials and an elevated, clear glass platform to make it appear that one side of the platform is several feet lower than the other.
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| visual preference method | A method of studying infants' abilities to distinguish one stimulus from another in which researchers measure and compare the amounts of time babies spend attending to different stimuli.
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