Topic 3: Perceptual Development Background Flashcards
What is perception?
the way our minds process, organize, and make sense of sensory data.
Define sensation.
The process of sensory organs registering stimuli and responding accordingly.
What does the perceptual system do?
Keeps us informed of what is happening in the environment and helps us respond accordingly.
When does perceptual abilities start to develop?
In the first year of life.
What causes perception?
An interaction between an infant’s sensory experiences and it’s genetics.
Why is the rate of perceptual development interesting to psychologists?
Because psychologists want to understand the connections between brain development, perceptal processing and healthy functioning.
At the time of birth, what systems develop in a child?
Auditory (hear), Olfaction (smell) and Tactile (touch) systems
When does the visual system develop in child’s life?
Across the first few weeks and months.
What is visual perception?
The brain’s ability to make sense of information that has been perceived via the eyes. It develops over the first year of life.
What is Acuity?
Is the sharpness of vision and ability to detect fine detail.
What is a developmental milestone for acuity?
An infant can see at 6m what adults normally see at 100-125m.
What is binocular vision?
It is the ability to perceive depth.
Why do newborns have immature depth perception?
A newborn’s eyes have poor muscle definition.
How is acuity determined?
By how quickly eye muscles contract and relax to allow the eye to focus.
How is binocular vision determined?
By the strength of eye muscle control.
What is colour in visual perception?
It refers to the ability to see colour.
At what age does infant’s ability to perceive colour develop?
4 months
What colours do young babies tend to be attracted to?
Bold or high-contrasting colours.
How is colour perception determined?
It is determined through the maturity of the cones of eyes (cells found in the retina).
What are two other perceptual abilities?
Facial recognition and depth perception.
What is facial recognition?
The ability to recognise faces.
What did Fantz (1963) conclude about facial recognition?
He studied pattern perception and found there was an innate/natural ability to recognise faces.
Hard to tell whether they prefer visual complexity in faces.
What did Goren (1975) find about infants facial preference?
They prefer typical faces over scrambled faces.
What is depth perception?
The visual ability to perceive in 3D and gauge how far away an object is.
At what age is depth perception developed in infants?
3 Months
What part of depth perception is developed in newborns?
Motion and size/shape discrimination.
Which depth cues does depth perception rely on to function properly?
Monocular and binocular cues.
What is monocular vision?
When an image is projected into a single retina and a cues are based on the comparison of other objects to the object being looked at.
What is binocular vision?
Each individual eye sees a slightly different image from a different angle so sizes of objects are compared.
