Memory Strategy – Child Psychology – Perceptual Development:

  • Fantz – Faces
  • Ayres – Autism and SI
  • Lashley – Fiddling rats
  • Lang – Lacks usefulness
  • Spalding – Speedy chicks
  • Habituation – Familarisation
  • Blakemore & Cooper – Cats
  • Compos – Cardio
  • Fantz – Focus = Involvement
  • Gibson & Walk – The ledge

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Groundwork – Perceptual evolution (Cerebral)

Perception is the process past which our minds organise, process and make sense of sensory data.

Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in 3D, coupled with the power to approximate how far abroad an object is.

Depth perception, size, and altitude are ascertained through both monocular (one eye) and binocular (two eyes) cues. Monocular vision is poor at determining depth. When an epitome is projected onto a single retina, cues about the relative size of the object compared to other objects are obtained. In binocular vision, these relative sizes are compared, since each individual middle is seeing a slightly dissimilar image from a different angle.

Visual perception: Data that enters our pupils and the power to recognise objects, colours and depth. Below are a number of sensory skills that develop over the first twelvemonth of life:

Acuity: this is the sharpness of or vision; the power to notice fine item. It is adamant by how quickly our centre muscles are able to contract and relax in guild to focus. Infants tin can see 6 metres clearly, but an adult can come across betwixt 100-125 metres!!

Binocular vision: eyes have to be aligned and coordinated in their movements in club to achieve authentic depth perception. Newborns eyes have poor muscle definition and and so struggle to do this.

Colour: cones are cells that are found in the retina and are responsible for color vision. Immature babies accept been found to prefer bold colours or highly contrasting ones such as black and white. Because their eyes are in the early stages of development, perceiving colours may be more hard for them.

Pattern Perception:

Fantz (1963) found that babies prefer complex patterns compared to simple patterns suggesting that babies can differentiate between patterns. He too plant that newborn babies preferred patterns that resembled a human confront compared to other patterns, suggesting an innate perceptual ability to recognise faces. He looked at children nether 5 days erstwhile and found that they spent more time looking at faces and patterns compared to plain colours.

How perceptual development can be studied in babies:

Habituation:

A new built-in any will wait at something if it is a new stimulus. If you nowadays the same matter to a baby many times, somewhen information technology volition lose involvement; if you and so present something similar merely different in some manner, the kid volition show interest again. For example, if you show a babe a moving picture of a square many times, the amount of fourth dimension the baby will look at the square will gradually decrease. If y'all show a series of squares until no interest is shown, and yous then bear witness a rectangle, if the child shows interest in it, we can infer that the child can tell the difference between a foursquare and a rectangle.

Compos (1900's)

Compos showed that 6 week old babies placed on a visual cliff had a decreased heart rate. At 7 months old infants were lowered down on a visual cliff their heart rate rapidly increases and they started to whimper, showing a fearful response.

Fantz (1950) A child was placed in front end of 2 stimuli whilst a researcher looked through the aparatus to time how long the child spent looking at a particular stimulus. The longer the gaze, the more the kid preferred that stimulus

How perception is measured in animals:

Spalding (1873) kept chicks in a black sack made from a soft flannel fabric. They were in the bag when they hatched. When he released them several days later, they could run to their female parent, fugitive obstacles, implying that they had the innate skill to identify where objects were and how to avoid them.

Lashley (1934) used rats and kept them in the dark for 3 months, when tested they used more try to bound large gaps than small gaps, implying that they knew when something was further away. However, when rats were kept in the dark for 300 days, rats did not have depth perception. This shows how perception may be innate, just without interaction with low-cal, this is a skill that tin can exist lost.

Other inquiry which looked at the effect of light on perception was accomplished by sewing up the eyelids on kittens and baby monkeys. When the middle lids were unstitched, this would testify what innate perception skills that the animals had.

Blakemore and Copper (1970) can also be used equally background inquiry.

Key Inquiry – The Visual Cliff: Gibson, Due east.J & Walk P. D (1960)

Aim:

  • The study also aimed to prove back up the idea that both humans' and other species' depth perception is innate.

 Enquiry Method:

  • The main study was a laboratory experiment
  • The independent variable (IV) was whether the baby was chosen by its mother from the cliff side or the shallow side (of the visual cliff appliance).
  • The dependent variable (DV) was whether or not the child would crawl to its mother.
  • This was a repeated measures design because the infant was chosen from both the cliff side and the shallow side of the apparatus.
  • The studies using other species are quasi-experiments. The naturally occurring independent variable (Iv) was the animal species. The dependent variable (DV) was whether the animate being preferred the shallow side or the deep side.

 Sample:

  • 36 infants ranging for 6-14 months. Their mothers as well participated in the experiment. Unspecified number of a variety of animal species eastward.g. cats, rats, goats, sheep, turtles and chickens

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Procedure:

  • Each child was placed on the centre lath, and his female parent called him from the cliff side and then after called the child from the shallow side.
  • Similarly chicks, turtles, rates, lambs, kids, and kittens were placed on the visual cliff apparatus
  • A number of command experiments were conducted to ensure the pattern of the visual cliff apparatus had no hidden bias e.1000. reflections from the glass were eliminated. In some experiments the patterned surface was replaced with a patently grey surface and finally, alterations were made in gild to determine which of the two visual cues play the decisive role in depth perception, either move parallax or relative size/size constancy.
  • To determine whether depth perception in rats and kittens is innate, groups of light-reared and dark-reared rats were tested using the visual cliff experiment.

Babe findings:

  • 27 infants who crawled off the board crawled out on the shallow side at least in one case.
  • Just 3 of the 27 children who moved off the board crawled off the brink onto the glass suspended to a higher place the pattern on the floor.
  • Many of the infants crawled abroad from the mother when she called to them from the cliff side and some cried when their female parent stood on the cliff side because they could not get to her without crossing the cliff.
  • Often the infants would peer down through the glass on the deep side so back away.
  • Some infants patted the glass with their easily, yet despite this tactual assurance of solidity would refuse to cross.

 Beast findings:

  • Overall, findings suggest that depth perception develops once the animate being becomes mobile – suggesting survival purposes shown in Lambs, Kids and chicks who go mobile inside 24 hours.
  • Kittens at iv weeks former choose the shallow side and freeze when placed on the cliff side.
  • Overall, most of the species behaved in a similar way to the children in the sense that they preferred the shallow side.
  • The poorest operation on the visual cliff was shown by turtles where 24% of the aquatic turtles crawl towards the cliff side.
  • When placed on glass over the deep/cliff side, Dark-reared kittens did non back off like low-cal-reared (normal) kittens, simply showed the same behaviour that they had exhibited on the shallow side.
  • Once exposed to the light the dark-reared kittens were tested daily. After a week they showed preference for the shallow side.
  • At the age of 90 days both low-cal-reared and dark-reared rats showed the same preference for the shallow side. These results support the idea that depth perception in rats is innate.

 Command experiments:

  • Overall, the variations of the experiment establish no hidden bias.

Separation of depth perception cues:

  • With only motility parallax to guide them, day old chicks, and rats reared in both low-cal and dark conditions showed a stiff preference for the shallow side. However, this was not the case when they just had object size to guide them. This finding suggests that motion parallax may be an innate visual cue, but that object size develops as a issue of maturation.

Conclusions:

  • Both nature and nurture influence the evolution of depth perception
  • Binocular cues such equally motion parallax are innate, while monocular cues such as size constancy are learned
  • Humans and other animals have developed depth perception by the time of the onset of mobility, which is specifically suited to the habitat and skills of the species.

Debates and methodological issues in Gibson & Walk:

Methodological and ethical issues:

Gibson and Walk created conditions that were distressing in babies who felt they could not reach their mothers safely. there are likewise ethical bug when researching perception using animals as it could cause suffering to the animals and cause irreversible effects due east.thousand. Blakemore and Coopers sensory deprivation enquiry.

Looking at perceptual processes involves inferring meaning that is made from their senses and behaviour. Therefore researchers will brand certain assumptions about what the participants are thinking – and this may not necessarily be valid – especially when there is no verbal communication to support the assumptions fabricated.

Although the procedures and instructions were highly standardised, it is possible that the verbal cues provided past mothers may accept inverse when calling the kid from the shallow side compared to the cliff side. This may evoke inapplicable variables.

Usefulness of research:

This inquiry has been useful in creating an fourth dimension line for visual perception in lodge to rail 'normal' development in newborns and infants. Findings like this help to place abnormalities in perception or vision. This is extremely of import as a kid may demand intervention such as spectacles or hearing devices or strategies such as Braille may need to exist taught.

Nature vs nurture:

Humans appear to have innate reflexes which help their sensory system e.g. the moro reflex, walking reflex etc. Most psychologists agree that perception is a result of both nature and nurture. Other research past Sugita (2004) have shown that although sensory capability may be nowadays, without the right environmental stimulation, depth perception and colour perception tin't develop.

Gibson and Walk may exist seen every bit supporting an innate caption of depth perception due to the fact that the participants were and so immature that it is presumed it is mainly biological. However, we are aware that depth perception changes extremely quickly after birth, and this would imply environmental influences. Research has even shown that babies tin can be capable of sensing some light and sound from the womb therefore showing again, ecology effects.

Reductionism vs holism:

Many psychologists look at something called neuroanatomy, cognitive processes and environmental exposure. This is seen as more holistic equally it tries to explain perception through the complex interaction of the above.

Psychology equally a science:

Research in this field tends to use lab weather and is therefore objective and standardised. Gibson and Walk reduced potential bias and extraneous variables by getting rid of lite reflection in lodge to improve validity. In addition the materials and instructions during the visual cliff task was standardised and would announced to be easy to replicate.

Application: a play strategy to develop perception in young children:

Sensory and Perceptual difficulties:

People with Attending Deficit Hyperactive Disorder or Autism may struggle to receive, process and make sense of information provided by their senses. These individuals are by and large recognised to have such difficulties at a very young historic period. Some people with autism have difficulty with bright lights and are sensitive to sure stimuli. Therapists accept been working to apply play to help facilitate their perceptual evolution.

Sensory integrative play (SI Therapy):

Ayres (1988) theory of sensory integration outline how our senses are neurologically organised for use and allow u.s. to movement, learn and part in our surround. Ayres believed that developing a multi sensory perception was the best strategy in helping those who struggled to perceive the world accurately.

SI works by:

  1. providing an initial assessment of the child's sensory issues using a number of standardised tests.
  2. developing a personalised treatment programme that uses effective techniques and tools to encounter the private needs of the child. These techniques are designed to be fun and, to the kid seem like everyday play, rather than a therapy session.

For SI to exist effective, the kid must have intrinsic motivation, they should see information technology as rewarding, not equally a chore.

Some examples of the playful activities include:

  • using brushes on the pare – encouraging bear on and hand-eye co-ordination
  • sitting or rolling on a bouncy ball to encourage vision and balance
  • being squeezed between exercise pads or wearing a weighted vest to encourage an understanding of pressure and motion
  • dancing to different types of music to encourage an understanding of sound and move

The effectiveness of SI therapy is measured through exact feedback from the child or from behavioural outcomes such as improved tolerance for stimulation, attention building, improvements in perceptual abilities or general functioning. In a nutshell, this therapy works past providing stimulation of the senses in order to encourage the development of them.

Fifty-fifty though Ayres highlights the success of her therapy, Lang (2012) carried out a meta-analysis of 25 studies using SI therapy and establish that only a few studies showed clear positive results and that near studies used modest samples.

Toys that encourage perceptual development:

Children'southward play is an essential part of a kid'due south interaction with their environment and stimulates the development of these skills. The more opportunities that a child has to use their skills, the more than developed they will become

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A mobile has brightly coloured moving objects and can help to stimulate visual perception. Through the movement of the mobile babies volition start to co-ordinate their center movements i.east. binocular vision. The child will try to achieve out for the objects and grab the toys on the mobile. This develops their understanding of distance east.g. motion parallax and size constancy.

A mobile is most appropriate for newborn babies

image-sound-bingo-cardSound bingo can help with children'southward auditory perception. For example the kid can develop the concept that loud noises means that something is close and quite noises means that something is further abroad. Children can also learn to link what they see with what they hear. Habituation is a theory that suggests that children get used to visual stimuli and then begin to ignore it. This game has a variety of pictures that may continue the infant stimulated. Sound bingo is more than appropriate for children aged 2-3 years

Tortoise_Dot-To-Dot

Dot-to-dot tin help develop visual perception. The child begins to develop manus eye co-ordination past joining the dots together. By completing various dot-to-dot activities, the child has experience of different shapes and this helps to develop their shape constancy i.e. the ability to see objects differently from different angles and orientations, and sympathise that objects remain the same shape even when they get bigger or smaller in size. Dot-to-dot is suited to children aged iv-6 years

sensory-diy-felt-baby-book

Sensory develop the perception of touch. Past feeling different materials, it enables them to understand unlike textures. The colourful nature of sensory books helps children to learn and differentiate between colours. It also develops acuity, through the smaller details in the books. Finally, it develops depth perception due to the 3D nature of the book. the child can develop binocular vision by using both optics to look at the pictures. Suited to newborns-1 year

$(KGrHqMOKo4FJgRbdU5sBSe2vMlwH!___32Shape sorters help the child to develop relative size/size constancy skills i.e. the ability to understand the distance of an object through the size of information technology. The child tin develop an understanding of 3D and 2D images. Suitable for children anile between 2-4 years.