perceptual development

Question 1

what is meant by ‘taking adult-like perception for granted’?

Answer 1

adult perception (e.g. colour, depth, shape) is often assumed, but infants’ perceptual systems are immature and develop over time

Question 2

what aspects of perception develop in infancy?

Answer 2

vision (colour, depth, shape, orientation, motion, constancy), sound, odour, segmentation, transparency and opaqueness

Question 3

why does perceptual development matter?

Answer 3

implications for education, arts, baby products and psychological theory and helps us understand what babies need at different stages

Question 4

why is it useful to know how vision develops?

Answer 4

helps understand what info babies can access and how to appropriately support learning

Question 5

how can researchers tell what a baby sees / thinks?

Answer 5

measuring looking behaviour, especially preferential looking methods

Question 6

what is preferential looking?

Answer 6

method where infants’ looking preferences are measured to infer what they can see or prefer, reliable and reveal biases e.g. pref. for high contrast

Question 7

what did Fantz (1956) show using preferential looking?

Answer 7

babies prefer patterned and high-contrast images over plain ones

Question 8

how do contrast differences help measure infant vision?

Answer 8

by varying line contrast, researchers can see what infants choose to look at, revealing visual sensitivity

Question 9

do babies prefer normal or scrambled images?

Answer 9

normal, structured images

Question 10

why are studies done with groups of infants rather than individuals?

Answer 10

because results can’t always be repeated with every baby, group averages are more reliable

Question 11

can babies see before birth?

Answer 11

can see some light in the womb and can make out shapes like hands, prenatal light studies show that they turn toward lights arranged in face-like configuration, even with minimal detal

Question 12

why are babies especially drawn to faces?

Answer 12

provide social info such as emotion, speech and identity which are crucial for survival and bonding

Question 13

what is visual acuity?

Answer 13

the sharpness or clarity of vision

Question 14

what is infant visual acuity like at birth?

Answer 14

very poor at birth but improves rapidly

Question 15

when do children typically reach 20/20 vision?

Answer 15

around 36 months (3 years)

Question 16

why might early blurry vision be useful?

Answer 16

prevents sensory overload and supports development of later skills like face perception

Question 17

how does early visual experience affect adulthood?

Answer 17

early vision shapes long-term perceptual abilities, including face processing

Question 18

what is meant by global vs local processing in face perception?

Answer 18

global processing focuses on overall shape / configuration; local processing focuses on details

Question 19

why might an immature visual system be good for learning faces?

Answer 19

emphasises global processing, which is important for face recognition

Question 20

what is a critical (sensitive) period?

Answer 20

time in development when perception is especially sensitive to environmental input

Question 21

what did cataract studies show about visual development?

Answer 21

early lack of visual input can permanently impair face perception, even if vision is later restored, tells us that normal visual experience during sensitive period is essential for typical perceptual development

Question 22

are colour receptors present at birth?

Answer 22

yes, but pathways for colour vision are immature

Question 23

can infants see colour at birth?

Answer 23

some colour, but improves rapidly in first months

Question 24

when does infant colour vision become adult-like?

Answer 24

around 3 months

Question 25

what are colour discrimination thresholds?

Answer 25

intensity a colour needs to be distinguished from grey

Question 26

how do colour discrimination thresholds change with age?

Answer 26

halve with every doubling of age

Question 27

what colour pathways exist in vision?

Answer 27

red-green, blue-yellow and luminance (light-dark)

Question 28

which colour pathway is present at birth?

Answer 28

red-green

Question 29

which colour pathway develops over the first two months?

Answer 29

blue-yellow

Question 30

how do we know babies can see red at birth?

Answer 30

look longer at red than white stimuli

Question 31

why don't newborns discriminate blue from white?

Answer 31

blue-yellow pathway is still immature

Question 32

do newborns recognise their mother's face?

Answer 32

yes, by about 4 days old, look longer at mums face than a strangers

Question 33

can newborns recoginise mum using only internal facial features?

Answer 33

no, they need broader cues like outlines

Question 34

what kind of experience helps babies recoginise faces?

Answer 34

multi-modal experience (seeing, hearing, interacting)

Question 35

what is perceptual narrowing?

Answer 35

process where infants lose ability to discriminate unfamiliar stimuli without experience, by 9 months infants can no longer discriminate faces of other species without exposure

Question 36

which study showed species-based face narrowing?

Answer 36

Pascalis, de Haan & Nelson (2002)

Question 37

can training prevent perceptual narrowing?

Answer 37

yes, between 6-9 months - maintains discrimination ability

Question 38

what is the 'other ethnicity effect'?

Answer 38

slower discrimination of faces from ethnicities different from one's own

Question 39

is perceptual narrowing limited to vision?

Answer 39

no, also occurs in auditory perception and other domains

Question 40

how does early colour experience differ across environments?

Answer 40

different light environments (e.g. polar regions) lead to different colour perception in adulthood

Question 41

is exposure alone enough for face expertise?

Answer 41

no, type of experience matters