La perception du mouvement en profondeur chez le nourrisson

Abstract

Summary A looming paradigm was used to determine what depth information infants process in addition to that provided by the expansion of a single, closed contour of an object. A total of 33 infants aged 22 to 48 days watched a film in which the circular elements and inter-element spaces of the projected image alternately expanded and contracted. A display containing 800 black disks elicited significantly more head responses directed away from the screen than displays having either one or three disks of the same size. The differences were only found in the expansion trials. Infants thus processed depth information provided by the expanding spaces between elements or movement of the elements toward the peripheral visual field. The results were in agreement with Gibson's (1966) description of the adequate stimulus for perceived movement in depth.

Infant Perception of Surface Texture and Relative Height as Distance Information: A Preferential‐Reaching Study

“…Sensitivity to these sources of information develops during the first months of life (for a review, see Kellman & Arterberry, 2006). Kinematic information is used as distance information by 1 month of age (e.g., Ball & Vurpillot, 1976; Náñez & Yonas, 1994); convergence is utilized as absolute distance information by 4–7 months of age (von Hofsten, 1977); and reactivity to binocular disparity emerges between 2 and 4 months of age, accompanied by the onset of stereoscopic depth perception (e.g., Brown & Miracle, 2003; Fox, Aslin, Shea, & Dumais, 1980; Granrud, 1986).…”

Young infants' sensitivity to optical information for collision.

“…Keeping one's eyes open wide as an object approaches on a collision course hardly seems an adaptive defence; indeed, most of the previously published studies on the development of responsiveness to information for approach (cf., Peiper, 1963;Jones, 1926;White, 1971) have used the blink response -or closing the eyes -as the sole indicator of depth sensitivity. And emotional upset and crying might indicate that the infant is detecting a noxious event, but other experimenters have not found that the approach of an object evokes an emotional response (Ball & Tronick, 1971;Ball & Vurpillot, 1976;. Even backward head movements, reported to occur consistently when young infants are shown looming displays (Ball & Tronick, 1971;Ball & Vurpillot, 1976;Yonas etal., 1977), present a problem of interpretation.…”

“…And emotional upset and crying might indicate that the infant is detecting a noxious event, but other experimenters have not found that the approach of an object evokes an emotional response (Ball & Tronick, 1971;Ball & Vurpillot, 1976;. Even backward head movements, reported to occur consistently when young infants are shown looming displays (Ball & Tronick, 1971;Ball & Vurpillot, 1976;Yonas etal., 1977), present a problem of interpretation. As Ball (Note 1) pointed out, the upward rotation of the infant's head may be attributed to tracking the upper contour of the display, rather than to a defensive reaction.…”