Recent Advances in Biological Psychiatry

The book explores a unique method of behavioral control through nutritive sucking, examining how arousal and learning influence early feeding behaviors in infants. The research highlights that while few infants initially adapted to operant-discrimination schedules, individual sucking patterns allowed some to quickly adjust to reinforcement. It suggests that early mothering involves a reciprocal relationship, where the nurturing environment aligns with the infant's feeding behavior, fostering associative learning. The study also addresses variations in infants' responses to environmental stimuli and proposes a model for the mother-infant dynamic.