Perception of object shape and texture in human newborns: evidence from cross‐modal transfer tasks

Abstract

The present research investigates newborn infants' perceptions of the shape and texture of objects through studies of the bi-directionality of cross-modal transfer between vision and touch. Using an intersensory procedure, four experiments were performed in newborns to study their ability to transfer shape and texture information from vision to touch and from touch to vision. The results showed that cross-modal transfer of shape is not bi-directional at birth. Newborns visually recognized a shape previously held but they failed to tactually recognize a shape previously seen. In contrast, a bi-directional cross-modal transfer of texture was observed. Taken together, the results suggest that newborn infants, like older children and adults, gather information differently in the visual and tactile modes, for different object properties. The findings provide evidence for continuity in the development of mechanisms for perceiving object properties.

Spatial localization of touch in the first year of life: Early influence of a visual spatial code and the development of remapping across changes in limb position.

“…For example, Kisilevsky and Muir (1984) have demonstrated that sleeping neonates will habituate to a brush stroke on either the lips or ear and then dishabituate to brushing at the novel one of these two locations. More recently, Streri and colleagues (Sann & Streri, 2007;Streri & Gentaz, 2003 have demonstrated that newborn infants will habituate and dishabituate (both manually and visually) to different shapes and textures presented to the palms of their hands. The ability to match shape and texture between tactile and visual modalities is thought to be an early acquired skill (Abravanel, 1981;Bryant, Jones, Claxton, & Perkins, 1972), and has also recently been observed in newborns (Sann & Streri, 2007;Streri & Gentaz, 2003.…”

Intermanual and Intermodal Transfer in Human Newborns: Neonatal Behavioral Evidence and Neurocognitive Approach

“…This result means that the infant's hand cannot sufficiently explore the held object to obtain a clear representation of this object. A number of studies have also revealed that over the course of development, the links between the haptic and the visual modalities are fragile, often not bi-directional, and representation of objects is never complete: this holds not only in infancy (Rose and Orlian 1991;Streri 2007;Streri and Pêcheux 1986), but in children (Gori et al 2008) and adults (Kawashima et al 2002). For example, in a behavioral and PET study on human adults, Kawashima et al found that the human brain mechanisms underlying crossmodal discrimination of object size follow two different pathways depending on the temporal order in which the stimuli are presented.…”

“…Shape alone seems to have been considered by newborns. Sann and Streri (2007) tested transfer from eyes to hand and from hand to eyes in order to ascertain whether this would demonstrate a complete primitive 'unity of the senses.' After haptic habituation to an object (cylinder or prism), the infants were shown the familiar and the novel shape in alternation.…”

Palmar Grasp Reflex in Human Newborns

“…McMaster et al [27] Sann and Streri [28] Shin et al [29] Colson et al [1] Gao et al [30] Tan and Tan [20] Young et al [31] Dionisio et al [32] Chaudhari and Deo [9] Hieu et al [33] Philippi et al [34] Pedroso and Rotta [35] Jain et al [36] Ericsson et al [37] Total 10 articles 4 articles Table 1: Summary of study data.…”

“…Sann and Streri [28] performed experiments to test the infants concerning shape and texture perceptions of objects. These objects presented two different sizes and textures.…”