The pattern of attachment shown by young children appears to be systematically related to patterns of maternal responsivity to the children. Infants seldom appear to develop any evidence of attachment behaviors directed at physically abusive caregivers. It appears to be impossible to demonstrate classical conditioning in young infants, as they seem to be functionally decorticate. According to Gilpin, the behaviors used as an operaitonal definition of the personality variable dependency are largely identical to those used to index social attachment in infancy. According to Gilpin, exposure to non-contingent, institutionalized environments typically has little impact on children's subsequent social or cognitive development.
Habituation is a simple kind of learning which can be demonstrated in human infants.
According to Eleanor Maccoby, the child's development of language facilitates the emergence of attachment behaviors such as separation anxiety. There appears to be only minimal overlap between genders in most behavioral domains. In Piagetian theory, a schema involves both a mental conception or image of a stimulus, and the action which would result when the stimulus is recognized. The proximodistal trend in behavioral development is reflected in modality preferences for attachment in infants vs. toddlers. According to Piaget, during the sensorimotor stage the child's thought is nonsymbolic.