Infant Perception ©Gallahue, D.L., Ozmun, J.C., & Goodway, J.D. (2012). Understanding Motor Development. Boston: McGraw-Hill. McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2012 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

9-2 Infant perceptual and motor development are intricately intertwined, resulting in an interdependent system

9-3  “Perception”: The process by which we gain immediate awareness of what is happening externally.  Perceptual Modalities  Visual  Auditory  Olfactory  Gustatory  Tactile/Kinesthetic

9-4 Perception Is The Process Of  Integrating new data ( sensory input )  With stored data ( cortical organization )  That leads to ( sensory integration )  An overt act ( motor output )

9-5  Changes in Infant’s State:  Head turn  Blinking  Tracking  Yawning  Crying  Film Analysis  Changes in Heart and Respiration Rates  Changes in Nonnutritive Sucking  Observing Habituation & Dishabituation to Stimuli  Measuring Evoked Potentials: Electrical brain responses

9-6  Contrast Sensitivity: One’s sensitivity to light  Eyes anatomically complete  Eyes functionally immature: Lachrymal ducts = inability to shed tears; color vision?  Consensual pupillary reflex  Strabismus  Turns head to light source  Closes eyes if light is bright  Visual Acuity: The degree of detail seen in an object  Organically complete-functionally immature  Rapid focal distance increases to adult-like by 6-12 months

9-7  Accommodation: Retinal image focusing  Poor as a neonate  Rapid improvement in first 2-4 months  Peripheral Vision: Extent of horizontal visual field  rapid improvement 15, 30, 40 degrees from center by 6 months  Visual Fixation: Attending to a stationary object  Three steps to binocularity: Bifoveal fixation; fusion; stereopsis  Monocular at birth  Binocularity improves with age and experience  fixates on bright objects  follows bright light

9-8  Tracking : Ability to follow a moving object  Saccades: Quick movements of the eyes from one object of focus to another  Smooth pursuits: Slow controlled movements of the eyes across the visual field  Sequence: Horizontal; vertical; diagonal; circular  Depth Perception : Ability to distinguish distance  Static: Depth judgments of stationary objects (figure 9.1 the Visual Cliff )  Dynamic: Depth judgments of moving objects  Monocularity at birth prevents perception of depth  Binocularity enables rapid improvement in both static & dynamic perception of depth

9-9  Color Perception: Ability to perceive and distinguish colors  Presence of rhodopsin & iodopsin in rods and cones  Infant responds to chromatic intensity  Infant prefers shape to color  Infant can discriminate among colors  Form Perception: Ability to distinguish shapes and discriminate among patterns  Infant prefers complex shapes  Imitates facial expressions  Prefers human face  Size and shape constancy  Discriminates between 2 and 3 dimensional figures

9-10  Auditory Perception: Sense of hearing  Prenatal responses  Localizes sound  Tonal responses  Discriminates among voices  Olfactory Perception: Sense of smell  Responds to & distinguishes among odors  Prefers mother’s order  Discriminates odors  Gustatory Perception: Sense of taste  Preferences: sweet to sour; sour to bitter  Tactile/Kinesthetic Perception: Sense of touch/feel  Responds to touch via reflexes from birth  Responds to touch via crude voluntary movements from birth

9-11 The hyphen in the term “Perceptual- motor” signifies the important reciprocal relationship between these two processes.