George F. Michel

**Education: Ph.D. Psychology (1972), B.A. Psychology (1966) **Research Interests: Development of manual skills and hemispheric specialization, developmental neuropsychology, neuromotor development, hormone-experience interactions in social and emotional development. **Teaching Interests: Developmental Psychobiology; History and Systems; Darwin, Evolution, & Society; Neuroscience; Evolution & Causation of Behavior.

There are 46 included publications by George F. Michel :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Adult judgments of infant expressive behavior: Facial, vocal, and body actions. 1993 3809 Adult judges were presented with videotape segments showing an infant displaying facial configurations hypothesized to express discomfort/pain, anger, or sadness according to differential emotions theory (Izard, Dougherty, & Hembree, 1983). The segme...
Behavioral Science, Engineering and Poetry Revisited 2010 1725 Forty years ago, Lehrman (1971) identified 2 orientations to the study of animal behavior. The natural history orientation conducted field and lab research designed to reveal how animals cope with the circumstances of their natural environment. Such ...
Bimanual role differentiated toy play during infancy. 1995 4120 Role-differentiated bimanual manipulation requires each hand to perform different, but complementary, actions on one or more objects. It is usually considered to be a late-developing high- level motor and cognitive skill involving the coordination of...
The Concept of Homology in the Development of Handedness 2013 1839 The construct of homology in the development of behavior is examined using human handedness. Research on the development of hand-use preferences in infants provides some evidence that it may be homologous with adult handedness. Nevertheless, I propos...
Concordance of Handedness Between Teacher and Student Facilitates Learning Manual Skills 1985 2579 Eighty-six left- and right-handed male and female adults received demonstrations of the manual actions involved in tying three different knots from either left- or right-handed female instructors. Learning was greatly facilitated by concordance of ha...
Contribution of nesting experience to progesterone-induced incubation in ring doves (Streptopelia risoria). 1985 2099 When a reproductively experienced dove is removed from visual isolation and placed in a breeding cage with an unfamiliar mate and a nest containing eggs, it takes about 5–7 days before it will exhibit incubation behavior. However, similarly experienc...
Contributions of reproductive experience to observation maintained crop growth and incubation in male and female ring doves. 1986 1806 Previous work has established that experienced male ring doves (Streptopelia risoria) can maintain prolactin-dependent crop growth and readiness to incubate by observing an incubating partner. We report that this is also true for female ring doves. T...
Development of Infant Prehension Handedness: A Longitudinal Analysis During the 6- to 14-month Age Period. 2010 3134 Handedness is a developmental phenomenon that becomes distinctively identifiable during infancy. Although infant hand-use preferences sometimes have been reported as unstable, other evidence demonstrates that infant hand-use preference for apprehendi...
The development of neuromotor skills and hand preference during infancy 2017 1111 Assessing infant handedness has been controversial. Different assessment techniques and theoretical approaches produce different results. Evidence from a dynamic systems perspective showed that the development of postural control during infancy affec...
Development of role-differentiated bimanual manipulation during the infant's first year 2010 1547 Role-differentiated bimanual manipulation (RDBM) is a complementary movement of both hands that requires differentiation between actions of the hands. Previous research showed that RDBM can be observed in infants as early as 7 months. However, RDBM c...
Development of Role-Differentiated Bimanual Manipulation in Infancy: Part 1. The Influence of Hand-use Preferences for the Acquisition of Objects. 2015 387 This is the first paper in a series of three discussing different aspects of the development of role-differentiated bimanual manipulation (RDBM—two hands performing different but complementary actions on an object). Emergence of RDBM is an important ...
Development of Role-Differentiated Bimanual Manipulation in Infancy: Part 2. Hand Preferences for Object Acquisition and RDBM—Continuity or Discontinuity? 2018 1125 This second paper in a series of three investigated the development of hand preference for role-differentiated bimanual manipulation (RDBM) relative to the infant’s hand preference for object acquisition and to the infant’s hand-use for acquiring the...
Development of role-differentiated bimanual manipulation in infancy: Part 3. Its relation to the development of bimanual object acquisition and bimanual non-differentiated manipulation 2016 1425 This third paper in a series of three related developmental trajectories of bimanual object acquisition and non-differentiated bimanual manipulation (NDBM) to patterns of role-differentiated bimanual manipulation(RDBM) development to help identify th...
A developmental psychobiological approach to developmental neuropsychology. 2001 4358 Although both developmental psychobiology and developmental neuropsychology examine the interface between biological and psychological processes, they differ in conceptual framework. This article argues for the incorporation into developmental neurop...
A Developmental Psychobiological Approach to Human Development 2014 1844 Individuals inherit not just genes from the parents but also an epigenetic pattern, an ecological (social, biological, and physical) niche, and perceptual and behavioral biases (e.g., culture), all of which can provide experiences necessary for the f...
A developmental science commentary on Charney’s “Behavior genetics and postgenomics” 2012 992 Charney’s target article convincingly demonstrates the need for the discipline of quantitative human behavior genetics to discard its false assumptions and to employ the techniques, assumptions, and research program characteristic of modern developme...
Do hand preferences predict stacking skill during infancy? 2016 1178 The cascade theory of handedness suggests that hand preferences develop from a history of cascading and sequentially developing manual asymmetries for a variety of actions. Infants who consistently use their preferred hand for a variety of actions li...
The effect of certain task characteristics on performance on two neuropsychological tests of spatial abilites. 1994 678 Certain neuropsychological assessments of spatial ability assume that the processing of diagonality and nondiagonality of patterns is equivalent and that processing 2-D representations is equivalent to processing 3-D objects. The Stick Test and the L...
Experience and progesterone in ring dove incubation. 1977 2094 Doves were tested for progesterone-induced incubation after they had acquired previous experience with from one to five different phases of their initial breeding cycle. A sixth group had no previous breeding experience. Previous breeding experience ...
Head orientation position during birth in neonatal period, and hand preference at 19 weeks. 1981 3001 This study of lateral preferences of normal full-term infants found, as predicted, that infants who were delivered from a left occiput antenor or transverse birth position (head turned to the nght) exhibited a neonatal right supine head onentation an...
A holistic developmental theory requires better research techniques. 1999 1524 Research pragmatics, not a defective conceptual framework, supports modern biological reductionism. Conducting research to reveal the casual web underlying the multiple developmental pathways leading to any species-specific characteristic requires be...
How the Development of Handedness Could Contribute to the Development of Language 2013 896 We propose a developmental process which may link the development of handedness with the development of hemispheric specialization for speech processing. Using Arbib’s proposed sequence of sensorimotor development of manual skills and gestures (that ...
How supine postural preference of infants can contribute towards the development of handedness. 1978 2422 During their first three months postpartum, infants manifest an asymmetrically lateralized head position preference, typically turned to the right. This head position preference elicits an asymmetrical tonic neck reflex, which places one hand in the ...
Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities 2016 1204 Hand preference develops in the first two postnatal years with nearly half of infants exhibiting a consistent early preference for acquiring objects. Others exhibit a more variable developmental trajectory but by the end of their second postnatal yea...
Infant interest expressions as coordinative motor structures 1992 2802 Two opposing facial actions, raised and knit (contracted} brows, hove been considered expressions of the unitary emotion of interest. We examined differential relationships between these brow actions and accompanying head, eye, arm, and other facial ...
Infant "surprise" expressions as coordinative motor structures. 1996 4048 This study found that the facial action of moderately or widely opening the mouth is accompanied by brow raising in infants, thus producing "surprise" expressions in non-surprise situations. Infants (age = 5 months and 7 months) were videotaped as th...
The influence of a hand preference for acquiring objects on the development of a hand preference for unimanual manipulation from 6 to 14 months 2015 847 Development of hand preferences for unimanual manipulation of objects was exploredin 90 infants (57 males) tested monthly from 6 to 14 months. From a larger sample of 380infants, 30 infants with a consistentleft hand preference for acquiring objects ...
Intermanual transfer of tactile discrimination. 1984 1601 Little is known about infant tactile discrimination, even though most sensory and motor innervation of each and is ,restricted to the contralateral hemisphere.
Intrauterine birth position predicts newborn supine head position preference. 1979 4051 Intrauterine orientation of the fetus before delivery, as judged from head position during birth, was found to be a reliable precursor of the supine head position preference of the neonate. The neonate's head position affected the finger positions of...
Latent classes in the developmental trajectories of infant handedness 2018 1339 Handedness for acquiring objects was assessed monthly from 6 to 14 months in 328 infants (182 males). A group based trajectory model identified 3 latent groups with different developmental trajectories: those with an identifiable right preference (38...
A lateral bias in the neuropsychological functioning of human infants 1998 2109 Using my published and unpublished research, a description of the development and functional significance of infant hand-use preferences is presented. Although the character of the infant's handedness will vary with the development of manual skill, t...
Maternal influences on infant hand-use during play with toys. 1992 3031 Infant hand-use preferences are related to mother's, but not father's, handedness. Since infants match mother's hand-use during toy play, maternal handedness can affect infant hand-use. Twenty-eight mother— infant pairs (14 left-handed and 14 right-h...
A meta-analysis of primate hand preference for reaching and other hand-use preferences. 2005 3988 Humans, as do most vertebrate species studied, exhibit a limb preference for unimanual activities. However, two characteristics of the human limb preference are thought to distinguish it from that of other vertebrates: (a) The preference is the same ...
Ontogenetic considerations in the phylogenetic history and adaptive significance of the bias in human handedness 1987 1921 Previous amounts of nonhuman primate handedness have failed to find any population bias in the distribution of preference. Hence, it is generally believed that a bias in the distribution of handedness is restricted to humans. MacNeilage et al. conten...
Ontogenetic constraints on the evolution of right-handedness. 2003 1794 Ontogenetic factors constrain the evolution of species-typical traits. Because human infants are born “prematurely” relative to other pri- mates, the development of handedness during infancy can reveal impor- tant ontogenetic influences on handedness...
Ontogeny of infant bimanual reaching during the first year. 1986 2628 Handedness and pattern of coordination during bimanual reaching were assessed separately for six groups of infants, 7 to 12 months old. Infants reached bimanually for a transparent toy-filled box. On some presentations of the box a low barrier was pl...
Postural Influences on the Development of Infant Lateralized and Symmetric Hand-Use 2018 1224 Within-individual variability is such an apparent characteristic of infant handedness that handedness is believed to consolidate only in childhood. Research showed that manifest handedness is influenced by emerging postural skills (sitting, crawling,...
Rate and timing precision of motor coordination in Developmental Dyslexia. 1990 5350 Learning to read builds on the speech processes of the child at many levels (Denckla, 1979; Mann, 1986), and language impairment is one of the most common behavioral correlates of developmental dyslexia (Doehring, Trites, Patel, & Fiedorowicz, 1981; ...
Relation of Stable Hand-Use Preferences to the Development of Skill for Managing Multiple Objects From 7 to 13 Months of Age 2008 1180 Expression of multiple object management skills (manual acquisition and storage of objects) was examined longitudinally at 7, 9, 11, and 13 months for38 infants (19 females) whose hand use preference was either stable (consistently right or left acro...
Right handedness: A consequence of infant supine head orientation preference? 1981 3858 Most newborn infants (65 percent) preferred to lie with their heads turned to the right, whereas 15 percent showed a distinct preference for the left. Orientation preference is maintained for at least 2 months and predicts preferential hand use in re...
The Role of Developmental Psychobiology in the Unification of Psychology 2013 3310 The interdisciplinary nature of Developmental Psychobiology (DPB) means that it already unifies many perspectives in psychology. DPB explanations of the development of both individual differences and species-typical behaviors include information from...
Sex Differences in neonatal state and lateralized head orientation. 1990 1954 Sex differences in state and head orientation were examined 10 to 22 hours after birth for 50 healthy, full-term, normal, vaginally delivered neonates. None of the males had been circumcised at the time of testing. The procedure required videotaping ...
Toddler hand preference trajectories predict 3-year language outcome 2017 938 A growing body of work suggests that early motor experience affects development in unexpected domains. In the current study, children's hand preference for role-differentiated bimanual manipulation (RDBM) was measured at monthly intervals from 18 to ...
Unimanual to bimanual: Tracking the development of handedness from 6 to 24 months 2018 1013 Manual skills change dramatically over the first two years of life, creating an interesting challenge for researchers studying the development of handedness. A vast body of work to date has focused on unimanual skills during the period from the onset...
Using Knowledge of Development to Promote Recovery of Function after Brain Damage 2012 1449 Knowledge of normal development of brain–behavior relations plays an important role in understanding how the plasticity of the nervous system can be used to promote recovery of function following brain damage. Aspects of the other articles in this is...
What is embodied: "A-not-B error" or delayed-response learning? 2001 2262 The procedures used to ensure reliable occurrences of the A- not-B error distort and miss essential features of Piaget’s original observa- tions. A model that meshes a mental event, highly restricted by testing pro- cedures, to the dynamics of bodily...