Child Psychology - Perceptual Development (Cognitive) Flashcards
Background;
Perception is the process by which our minds organise, process and make sense of sensory data.
Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in 3D, coupled with the ability to gauge how far away an object is.
Depth perception, size, and distance are ascertained through both monocular (one eye) and binocular (two eyes) cues. Monocular vision is poor at determining depth. When an image is projected onto a single retina, cues about the relative size of the object compared to other objects are obtained. In binocular vision, these relative sizes are compared, since each individual eye is seeing a slightly different image from a different angle.
Visual perception: Information that enters our pupils and the ability to recognise objects, colours and depth. Below are a number of sensory skills that develop over the first year of life:
Acuity: this is the sharpness of or vision; the ability to detect fine detail. It is determined by how quickly our eye muscles are able to contract and relax in order to focus. Infants can see 6 metres clearly, but an adult can see between 100-125 metres!!
Binocular vision: eyes have to be aligned and coordinated in their movements in order to achieve accurate depth perception. Newborns eyes have poor muscle definition and so struggle to do this.
Colour: cones are cells that are found in the retina and are responsible for colour vision. Young babies have been found to prefer bold colours or highly contrasting ones such as black and white. Because their eyes are in the early stages of development, perceiving colours may be more difficult for them.
Blakemoore and Cooper can be used in this as a comparison study!
Key Research;
The Key research by Gibson and Walk investigated how humans and other animals perceive height distance, which is a specific form of distance perception - Particularly interested at which stage human infants and young animals develop the ability to perceive height distance. The sample consisted of 36 infants (6-14 months) and their mothers. They have also used an unspecified number of animals like cats, rats, goats sheep, turtles and chickens. The study was a Laboratory experiment which has used the ‘visual cliff’ (mother was called from the shallow side and then from the deep side). Results showed that 100% moved across gap when mum was at shallow side and 11% when mum was at the deep side. Conclusions are that Both nature and nurture influence the development of depth perception. Humans and other animals have developed some depth perception by the time of the onset of mobility, which is specifically suited to their habitat and behaviour of their species.
Applications;
Sensory Integrative Therapy (SI Therapy) - This type of therapy is designed to help people with sensory and perceptual difficulties. This strategy has emerged from the work of Jean Ayers who has argued that interventions such as SI therapy could develop improved learning, visual and auditory perception. The way SI works is that the therapists shapes the therapy based on the child’s needs. Especially for children the techniques are made to be fun and engaging. Some of these techniques include brushes touching skin, sitting or rolling on bouncy balls, dancing or being squeezed between mats or wearing a weighted vest. All of these different techniques should be comfortable for the child to act out and therefore the therapist must listen to the child’s feedback.
