The hours of trying to calm a fussy 3-month-old led Carolyn Kent Rovee-Collier to a lifetime study and new understanding of infant psychology.

Dr. Rovee-Collier's creative solution - discovered in 1965 while she was working on her doctoral thesis - involved tying a ribbon to baby Benjamin's ankle so he could set his crib mobile in motion on his own. Benjamin's response proved that preverbal infants could learn and remember, according to Dr. Rovee-Collier's son Christopher Rovee.

"In the succeeding decades, she gradually changed the way people conceived of the infant brain and its capacities," he wrote in an appreciation of his mother's life.

On Thursday, Oct. 2, Dr. Rovee-Collier, 72, a Rutgers University psychology professor for 43 years, died of breast cancer at her home in Hunterdon County, N.J.

"What she did was develop a new way to study infants' ability to remember things over different time periods, including the next day," Rochel Gelman, a Rutgers psychology professor, said in a Rutgers article. "And she did this at a time when people didn't think babies remembered much of anything."

Several former students, each of whom collaborated with Dr. Rovee-Collier on a few of her more than 200 published papers, praised her teaching style, mentorship, and compassion.

"Without exception, Professor Carolyn Rovee-Collier taught me everything that I needed to know to carve out my own successful academic career," said Harlene Hayne, vice chancellor at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, who collaborated on more than a dozen published papers with Dr. Rovee-Collier.

"She taught me to challenge ideas, both my own and those of other people," Hayne said in an e-mail. "She taught me the importance of excellent science, impeccable grammar, hard work, and, most importantly, compassion and kindness."

In 1974, four years after joining Rutgers, Dr. Rovee-Collier established the Early Learning Project and was its director until it closed in 2013, her son said. Its website states that "by teaching young infants simple and enjoyable games, we can investigate the dynamics of their long-term memory."

Dr. Rovee-Collier was president of the International Society on Infant Studies from 1994 to 1996, of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology in 1987-88, and the Eastern Psychological Association in 2002-03.

She was the coauthor of The Development of Implicit and Explicit Memory, released by John Benjamins Publishing in 2001. She edited the journal Infant Behavior and Development from 1981 to 1998.

Jeffrey W. Fagen, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at St. John's University in New York, wrote in an e-mail of "how much learning from Carolyn to think strategically and systematically has helped me not only as a scientist and educator but even now as an academic administrator."

Fagen recalled that Dr. Rovee-Collier taught him to "pay attention to everything that happens when running an experiment. The thing you are looking for may not be the thing you find."

In class, Dr. Rovee-Collier "moved around the room, full of energy. She was not someone who was shy or reticent in engaging with the students," recalled Wendy Hill, head of school at Agnes Irwin in Rosemont.

"She was able to take the most complicated topic and explain it with everyday examples so that the complexity faded away and the clarity of the theory became obvious," Hill said.

Kimberly Boller, senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, wrote in an e-mail that "Carolyn saw each of us as her collaborators, not just her students, which is rare in academia."

Boller noted that "by suggesting that I apply for a Society for Research in Child Development Executive Branch Public Policy fellowship and writing a long letter of recommendation for me, she opened new doors that led to my career as an applied developmental psychologist studying programs for young children and their families."

Born in Nashville, Dr. Rovee-Collier graduated in 1959 from the University Laboratory School in Baton Rouge, La., where her father taught comparative anatomy at Louisiana State University.

She earned a bachelor's in psychology in 1962 after three years at Louisiana State. She earned a doctorate in experimental child psychology at Brown University in 1966.

Besides her sons George Benjamin and Christopher, she is survived by her husband, George Collier; stepsons George Jr., Jon, and James Collier; two grandsons; a step-granddaughter; and her former husband, David Rovee.

Plans for a memorial gathering are pending.

Donations may be sent to the Carolyn Kent Rovee-Collier '59 Memorial Scholarship at www.ulsfoundation-lsu.org.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.holcombefisher.com.

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