Detailed Study Notes on Sticky Mittens Research

Study Focus: Investigates how early experiences with reaching for objects using ‘sticky mittens’ enhances young infants’ exploratory skills.
Method: Pre-reaching infants engaged in simulated prehension during 10-14 play sessions.
Findings: Infants with sticky mittens engaged more with objects, demonstrating improved exploration skills compared to peers without this experience.
Conclusion: Early simulated experiences enhance object engagement in young infants.

Development Question: How does the environment affect developing organisms?
- Traditional view: Critical (or sensitive) periods where organisms are sensitive to environmental input.
- Alternative view: Experiences shape and are shaped by complex interactions between organisms and their environments (cited: Bertenthal & Campos, 1987; Gottlieb, 1991a, 1991b).
Aim of Current Research: To investigate the effect of enriching infants’ reaching experiences on object exploration behavior.
- Focus on infants given early opportunities to grasp objects compared to those without such experiences.
Influences on Action: Not previously understood how past experiences influence future actions related to object interaction.

Previous Research: Infants’ reactions to visual cliffs (Bertenthal et al., 1984, 1994) and the role of self-produced locomotion on perception.
- Fear of heights linked to self-produced locomotion, indicating experience shapes actions in a nuanced manner (Adolph, 1997, 2000).
Gibson’s Theory (1988): New motor skills allow for more exploratory situations with cognitive implications.
Linking Motor Skills and Object Exploration:
- Infants typically begin purposeful reaching around 5 months, with prior experiences enhancing exploration skills.
- Developmental Changes Noted (Rochat, 1989): 2-5 month-old infants show an increase in coordinated exploration across sensory modalities (oral, visual, and manual).

Infants increase oral and visual object exploration from 2-5 months.
Factors in Exploration Increase:
- Gross motor skills development (e.g., arm and hand strength).
- Fine motor skills development (e.g., fingering behavior).
- Hand-eye and hand-mouth coordination improvements.
- Motivation: Infants show increasing interest in objects post reaching abilities (Fogel et al., 1992).

Sample: 32 healthy, full-term infants (15 girls, 17 boys) aged between 3-3.6 months.
Conditions: Half in experimental (sticky mittens) and half in control group.
Exclusions: Seven infants removed from analysis for fussiness, lack of minimum playtime, or extreme outlier results.

Toys: Three sets, altered to attach Velcro for experimentation:
- Set 1: Wooden blocks, various sizes and colors.
- Set 2: Black plastic rings of different shapes.
- Set 3: Plastic Duplo® blocks.
Mittens Description: Made of soft fleece with Velcro on palms, allowing infants to grasp toys effectively.
Parental Tracking: Parents kept a log of play time with infants using the mittens.

Equipment: Plastic cubes and corresponding mittens from home session. 74 cm height table for object interaction; infants in supportive seating.

Parents led sessions with informal play, infants wore mittens during interaction with toys for 10 minutes daily over two weeks.

Tests: Consisted of prehension and object exploration trials, engaging with familiar (from home) and novel objects.
Video recorded for subsequent analysis of behaviors like swatting, looking, and mouthing.

Measurements for duration of various behaviors (looking time, mouthing time) taken by trained coders.
Prehension Trials: Swatting behavior noted and divided by action’s intent (with vs. without prior visual contact).
Object Exploration Trials: Assessed visual and oral engagement with objects.

Visual Engagement: Infants in the experimental condition looked at objects significantly longer (M = 68.3) than those in the control group (M = 33.0).
Swatting Behavior: Experimental infants exhibited a trend towards increased swats (M = 6.9) compared to controls (M = 4.8).
Intentional Swats: Experimental infants showed significant increases in intentional swats (M = 5.7) compared to controls (M = 2.5).

Exploration Percentages: Significantly higher in the experimental group (M = 47.6) compared to controls (M = 21.6).
Mouthing and Looking Behavior: Greater mouthing for the experimental group (M = 23.2) than controls (M = 8.1).
Switching Behavior: Experimental infants switched exploration modalities more frequently than controls (M = 9.0 vs. M = 2.0).

Key Conclusions:
- Infants with sticky mittens showed significant engagement with objects and enhanced exploration skills from the enrichment experience.
- This experience might help in generalizing skills to untrained contexts when the mittens are removed.
Future Directions: Research to clarify components of the experience facilitating enhanced exploration.
- Investigate whether other manipulations can elicit similar results (e.g., connecting objects with strings, etc.).

Extensive citations supporting the methodologies, findings, and theoretical frameworks outlined within the study, covering significant works in developmental psychology, motor skills, and infant behavior research.