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Musical preferences of 45 preschool children (mean age 4 years, 7 months) were assessed in a short-range longitudinal study incorporating a pre- and posttest experimental design. Six classical and two popular pieces were evaluated. All children liked all the pieces during the pretest. During the 10 months that elapsed between pre- and post-testing, an experimental group ( n = 21) received weekly 45-min classes in appreciation of classical music during which they listened to classical music, sang classical themes, played musical games, learned the names and sounds of the instruments of the orchestra, and so on. Posttest results indicate the experimental group preferred the classical selections significantly more than the control group. The control group experienced a decline in preference for the classical pieces during the 10-month interval. The experimental group maintained a liking for classical pieces used in the study with no pretest–posttest differences. The hypotheses that repetition, modeling, and social reinforcement can influence musical preference, proposed in research with older children, are basically supported. All groups liked popular music. There were no significant pretest–posttest differences or decreases in liking for popular music.

In an attempt to evaluate human development journals in terms of both visibility and credibility, responses from 318 members of the Society for Research in Child Development were obtained to two questionnaire items: (1) list the 10 journals in which the best developmental articles are published, and (2) rank order the above list from 1 to 10. Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Human Development, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, and the Journal of Genetic Psychology were the most frequently nominated developmental journals. Quality ratings seemed to vary with subspecialities. Comparisons with previous studies and implications of the findings are discussed.

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Frame-by-frame film analysis of head movements of five adult-neonate (3 males and 2 females; age = 1 day) dyads demonstrated that adult and neonate participate in a highly statistically significant, \ 2 (4) = 28.07, p < .001, facial social interaction consisting largely of patterns of approach and withdrawal, with one subject approaching while the other moves his or her face away. Mutual approach and mutual withdrawal occur less frequently than expected. Serially lagging the behaviors (comparing the behavior of one subject with the preceding behavior of the other subject in the dyad at !4-, Vi-, etc., sec intervals) demonstrated that the adult is not merely following the infant, or vice versa. The most powerful relation between the subjects' behavior exists for the simultaneous comparisons. These patterns of facial behavior in the first hours of life may be a primary means of reciprocal social interaction, and the behavior patterns described here could provide a foundation for later-developing mechanisms of nonverbal communication and social control.