Chapter 4: Physical Development: Body, Brain, and Perception Perceptual Development By Kati Tumaneng...

Chapter 4: Physical Development: Body, Brain, and Perception

Perceptual Development

By Kati Tumaneng(for Drs. Cook & Cook)

Perceptual Development

Nervous system relatively immature at birth.

Despite this, even young infants are more capable than previously thought at organizing and using sensory information meaningfully.

Robert Fantz and Visual Preferences

Experiments to determine if form perception was innate or learned.Baby chicks pecked at some shapes more

than others.Chimpanzees fixated on some patterns

longer than others.


Preferential-looking technique – Used to test infants visual perception. If infants consistently look longer at some patterns than others, researchers infer they can see a difference between the two patterns.

Newborns only 2-5 days old preferred a drawing of a face over a bull’s eye or newsprint, but preferred these detailed prints over colored discs.Parents Guide to Visual Development: http://www.children-special-needs.org/parenting/preschool/visual_child_development.html

Looking Chamber

Preferential-Looking Results


Human Faces and Other PreferencesMoving stimuliOuter contours or edgesSharp color contrastsPatterns with some detail or complexitySymmetrical patternsCurved patternsPatterns that resemble the human face

Face Stimuli

Researchers showed these patterns one at a time to newborns who were only a few minutes old. Although they had yet to see their first real face, the newborns preferred to look at the pattern that most resembled the arrangement of the human face.

Infant Visual Fixation of Facial Patterns

Tracking their eye movements, you can see that 1-month-old infants spend most of their time looking at external features of the face – mostly the chin and outer hairline. By 2 months, infants are now looking more at the internal features, especially the eyes and mouth.

Habituation-Dishabituation Research

Habituation – The tendency of infants to reduce their response to stimuli that they are presented repeatedly.

Dishabituation – The recovery or increase in infant’s response when a familiar stimulus is replaced by one that is novel.

Habituation-dishabituation technique – Used to test infants perception. Infants are shown a stimulus repeatedly until they respond less (habituate) to it. Then a new stimulus in presented.

Degree of dishabituation is moderately accurate predictor of intelligence for ages 1-8.

Habituation-Dishabituation Example

This graph shows hypothetical data from work with a 4-month-old infant using the habituation–dishabituation technique. The infant shows habituation by looking less and less at a red circle that is presented repeatedly—but looking time increases (dishabituation) when novel forms or colors are presented.

Vision: Acuity, Color, and Depth

How Clear is Their Sight? Measuring Infant Visual AcuityVisual Acuity – Ability to see fine detailFantz “striped patterns”Acuity poor in first months but sufficient for

infant’s tasksReaches 20/20 by 6-12 months

Patterns used to test visual acuity in infants

Researchers use the preferential-looking technique to determine which set of stripes infants differentiate from the plain gray square.


How Colorful is Their Sight? Color Vision in InfancyPreference for green, yellow, or red over

greyDistinguish red from white but not blue,

green, or yellow from whiteColor vision relatively mature by 6 months


How Deep is that Drop? Early Depth Perception Infants as young as two months can

perceive depth on visual cliff, better developed by age of crawling

Cues indicating depthPictorial Cues Motion Parallax Binocular Disparity

Visual Cliff

Auditory Perception

Auditory system functional several weeks before birth.

By 6 months, capable of responding to broad range of sounds.

Even so, still not completely mature.

Facts on Infant Hearing Loss: http://ndaap.org/hearing.htm#NORMAL%20AUDITORY%20DEVELOPMENT

Auditory Perception

Child-Directed Speech – Special singsong way that adults and older children talk to infants, speaking slowly, clearly, and with exaggerated intonation.

Infants and young children may be more sensitive than adults to higher frequencies of sound.

Infants able to locate sounds in their environment by turning their head or eyes in the direction of the sound source.

Prefer voice of own mother to voices of unfamiliar females; not same for father’s voice.

Perception of Smell and Taste

Babies can react to certain odors in manner similar to adults.

Breast-fed newborns can recognize smell of mother.

Can also show taste preferences immediately after birth.

Perception of Smell and Taste

Intermodal Perception

The process of combining or integrating information across sensory modalities.

Infants capable of detecting features that are invariant across sensory modalities without significant learning.

Strength of intermodal perception also predictor of later cognitive functioning.

Newborn’s Sensory System info: http://howchildrenlearn.homestead.com/indexhtml3.html

Looking Chamber on Slide 5: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 156). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Chart on Slide 6: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 157). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Face Stimuli on Slide 8: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 158). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Infant Fixation Pattern on Slide 9: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 159). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Chart on Slide 11: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 160). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Patterns on Slide 13: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 161). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Picture on Slide 16: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 162). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.



All other images retrieved from Microsoft PowerPoint Clip Art.

Chapter 4: Physical Development: Body, Brain, and Perception Perceptual Development By Kati Tumaneng...

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