Perceptual development Flashcards
Is vision well developed at birth?
No - newborns haven’t developed the high spatial frequencies that older infants have
Are we near/far sighted at birth?
Far-sighted at birth
At 2 months-old, we focus on objects how far away?
30cm - the distance between the baby’s face to the mother’s breast
What age is an infant’s eyesight equivalent to that of adults?
6 months-olds
What were Sann and Streri (2007) investigating?
Whether info that newborns hold in one sensory modality is accessible to other modalities
Newborns ability to transfer shape and texture info from vision to touch, and from touch to vision
What stimuli did Sann and Streri (2007) use in their study?
Tactual = cylinder (smooth) and prism (sharply angled)
Visual = 10x larger red cylinder and 10x larger red prism
What method did Sann and Streri (2007) use in their study?
EXPERIMENT 1
Newborns were tactually habituated to a cylinder/prism
EXPERIMENT 2
Newborns were visually habituated to a cylinder/prism
What did Sann and Streri (2007) find?
EXPERIMENT 1
After tactile habituation to the prism (familiar object), all newborns looked longer at the cylinder (novel object) than the prism (familiar object)
EXPERIMENT 2
After visual habituation to the cylinder (familiar object), newborns held (paid more attention to) the prism (novel object) for longer than the cylinder (familiar object)
What did Sann and Streri (2007) conclude?
Newborns gather, process, memorise and exchange info in the visual and tactile modalities by testing the bi-directional cross-modal transfer of shape and texture properties
When do foetuses detect sounds?
Third trimester
When do infants locate sounds?
3-4 months old
What did Jordan and Brannon (2006) do?
7 month-olds watched 2 screens (video of 2/3 women) - women mouthed “look” at the same time
Infants heard 2/3 women (i.e. vision matched/didn’t match sound)
What did Jordan and Brannon (2006) find?
Infants looked longer at the matched videos –> they can analyse speech to determine how many people are talking and can match numbers across modalities
Do newborns prefer simple or complex tones?
Newborns prefer complex tones
When can infants distinguish changes in tempo?
2-4 months old
When do infants show a sense of musical phrasing?
4-7 months old
When can infants distinguish musical tones using variations in rhythmic patterns?
6-7 months old
When can infants recognise the same melody being played in different keys?
By 1 year old
When do infants organise sounds into more elaborate patterns?
Over the first year
How old are infants when they make scale errors?
18-30 months-old
How long does it take for an infant to determine an object’s scale?
3 years
What happened when DeLoache, Uttal and Rosengren (2013) showed children full-sized toys, then mini versions?
The children tried to fit into/onto the mini versions –> they failed to use info about object size
Scale errors reflect problems with…
…inhibitory control & the integration of visual info for perception and action
What are DeLoache, Uttal and Rosengren’s (2013) three assumptions?
- Children have a stored concept of the toy’s actual size in the real world
- Children must be able to judge the actual size of the toy
- There must be interference between the stored concept of the object represented by the toy & the toy itself when a movement plan is formulated
Scale errors show that memories for ‘action affordances’…
…can override the visible objects themselves.
In planning the movement directed towards a toy car, children are influenced by the memory that a car affords the behaviour of stepping into it.
What might facilitate synaesthesia in infancy?
Exuberant neural connectivity
What can lead to synaesthesia in adulthood?
Failure of the retraction process