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AbstractThe ability to quickly detect potential threat is an important survival mechanism for humans and other animals. Past research has established that adults have an attentional bias for the detection of threat‐relevant stimuli, including snakes and spiders as well as angry human faces. Recent studies have documented that preschool children also detect the presence of threatening stimuli more quickly than various non‐threatening stimuli. Here we report the first evidence that this attentional bias is present even in infancy. In two experiments, 8‐ to 14‐month‐old infants responded more rapidly to snakes than to flowers and more rapidly to angry than to happy faces. These data provide the first evidence of enhanced visual detection of threat‐relevant stimuli in infants and hence offer especially strong support for the existence of a general bias for the detection of threat in humans.

In order to determine the minimal information required for newborns to discriminate unfamiliar voices two experiments were performed using the presentation of single disyllabic words uttered by male and female speakers. In the first experiment, utilizing the standard high‐amplitude‐sucking procedure, no significant discrimination was obtained. Hypothesizing that this failure in discrimination could be due to a deficient attention at the unique moment of stimulus change, a second experiment was performed in which the same to‐be‐discriminated stimuli alternated every minute and in which multiple tokens of the same word were presented to increase stimulus variability. Evidence for voice discrimination was obtained, suggesting that newborns are able to characterize unfamiliar voices on the basis of restrained vocal‐tract related information and minor prosodic information. Remarks addressing the consequences of stimulus organization upon attentional demands in experimental procedures in young infants are also presented.