CHAPTER 6

PERCEPTION
 Learning Objectives

• What are the views of

constructivists and
nativists on the
nature/nurture issue as
it relates to sensation
and perception?
 Nature and Nurture
• Constructivists (Nurture)
– Perception is constructed through learning
– Declines due to environmental influences
• E.g., disease, loud noise etc.
• Nativists (Nature)
– Perception does not require interpretation
– Declines are universal, due to aging
 Learning Objectives
• How are perceptual abilities of infants assessed?
• What are infants’ visual capabilities?
• What sorts of things do infants prefer to look at?
 Methods of Studying Infant Perception

• Habituation:
Discrimination Learning
– “Learning to be
bored”
• Preferential looking
– Duration of looking at
one of a pair
• Evoked Potentials:
recorded as child looks
• Operant Conditioning
– Positive
reinforcement of one
stimulus in a pair
Vision
• Present at birth
– Detect changes in
brightness
– Visually track moving
objects
• By 4 months can discriminate
colors
• Visual acuity at about 8 inches
• Visual accommodation: 6 to 12
mo
• Color vision mature at 2 to 3
mo
• Prefer contour, contrast, and
movement
• Prefer complex over simple
patterns
• Researchers must devise special ways to assess infants’ perceptual abilities. Here, an experimenter
and camera record how much time the infant looks at each stimulus. The visual preference test was
pioneered by Robert Fantz in the early 1960s.
• In a series of studies, Cassia, Turati, and Simion (2004) showed that newborns prefer an upright face
over an upside-down one (A) and prefer a top-heavy configuration over a bottom-heavy one (B), but
do not show a preference for an upright face when paired with a top-heavy configuration.
 Vision 2
• Depth perception
– Newborns appear to have size constancy
– The visual cliff: Gibson & Walk (1960)
• A crawler (7 mo) will not cross the cliff
• Can perceive the cliff by 2 months
• Fear of drop-off requires crawling
• Infants as Intuitive Theorists: able to make
sense of the world
• An infant on the edge of a visual cliff, being lured to cross the “deep” side.
 Learning Objectives
• What are the auditory
capabilities of infants?
• What do researchers know
about infants’ abilities to
perceive speech?
• What are the taste and smell
capabilities of infants?
• To what extent are infants
sensitive to touch,
temperature, and pain?
 Hearing and Speech
• Humans can hear well before birth
• Newborns discriminate sounds that differ in loudness,
duration, direction, and pitch
• Two- to 3-month olds distinguish phonemes
– Eimas (1985) “Ba & Pa” studies
• Newborns prefer female/mother’s voice
• Lose sensitivity to sounds not needed for home
language
Taste and Smell
• Newborns can distinguish
between sweet, bitter, and sour
tastes
– Show a clear preference for
sweet
– Facial expressions reflect taste
• Cry and turn away from
unpleasant smells
• Breast-fed babies recognize
mother’s smell
• Mothers can identify their
newborns by smell
 Touch, Temperature, and Pain
• Sense of touch (& motion)
before birth
– Useful for soothing a fussy
baby
• At birth sensitivity to warm and
cold
• Clearly sensitive to painful
stimuli
• Do babies require anesthesia
for surgery?
– More harm from stress of
pain
– Recommended for
circumcisions
Learning Objectives
• To what extent can infants
integrate their sensory
experiences?
• What is an example of cross-
modal perception?
• What role do early experiences
play in development of
perceptions?
• What factors contribute to
normal visual perception?
• What changes occur in
attention throughout
childhood?
 Integrating Sensory Information
• Senses interrelated within the first month
• Cross-modal perception: previously seen
objects identified by touch alone
• Nature: Very early perceptual abilities
• Nurture: Sensory system requires stimulation
to develop normally
– First 3-4 months=Critical/Sensitive period
• Infant cataracts result in blindness
• Delayed understanding after cochlear
implants
 The Development of Attention
• From infancy on:
– Attention span increases
– More able to
concentrate on a task
– Attention becomes more
selective
– Able to ignore
distractions
– More systematic
perceptual searches in
order to achieve goals &
solve problems
 Learning Objectives
• How can hearing loss be minimized across
the lifespan, beginning with adolescence?
• What changes occur in visual capabilities and
visual perception during adulthood?
• What changes occur in auditory capabilities
and speech perception occur during
adulthood?
• What changes occur in taste and smell, and
in sensitivity to touch, temperature, and pain
during adulthood?
The Adult
• Sensory and perceptual
capacities decline
– May begin in early
adulthood
– Noticeable in 40s; Typical
by age 65
– Gradual and minor in
normal adults
– Compensation gradually
increases
• Sensory threshold: point at
which the least amount of a
stimulus can be detected
– Increases with age
 Sensory/Perceptual Problems
• Sensory thresholds rise with
age
• Vision
• By age 70: 9/10 wear corrective
lenses
– 1 in 4 will have cataracts
– Pupil less responsive to light
• Dim lighting is
problematic
• Dark and glare adaptation
difficult
• Presbyopia: Middle age glasses
– Thickening lens = poor near
vision
 Other Visual Problems

• Retinal Changes: cells die,

no longer function
• Age-Related Macular
Degeneration
– Loss of center visual
field, blurry vision
 Other Visual Problems
• Glaucoma: increased
eye-fluid pressure
– Damages optic
nerve…..

Cataracts:
 Other Visual Problems

• Loss of Peripheral
Vision (Tunnel Vision)
• Retinitis Pigmentosa
(RP)
– Deterioration of
light-sensitive cells
Attention and Visual Search
• Selective attention
declines
– More easily distracted
from task
– Attend to irrelevant
cues
• Novel, complex tasks more
difficult
– Familiar and well-
practiced skills remain
Hearing/Speech in Older Adults
• Most have at least mild hearing
loss
• Presbycusis: loss of high-
pitched sounds
– More common and earlier in
men
• Some difficulty with speech
perception
– May be cognitive or sensory
– Background noise a problem
• Novel and complex tasks
problematic
 Speech Perception
• Dependent on hearing
abilities
• Also cognitive processes
– Attention, memory
• Listening conditions
important
– Background noise
problematic
• Novel and complex tasks
problematic
– Familiar conditions allow
use of contextual cues
Other Senses in Older Adults
• Over 70: Taste and smell
thresholds increase
– Many are not affected at all:
Mostly men
– Affected by disease and
medications
– Loss of enjoyment of food may
cause malnutrition in older
adults
• Less sensitive to touch and
temperature
• Less sensitive to mild but not
severe pain