Abstract
For several decades, the role of vision in the development of infant reaching has been considered crucial. Over the past 15 years, however, this role has been questioned by a number of studies which have shown that young babies are capable of contacting objects in the dark and that, even in complete visibility conditions, they use primarily proprioceptive information to direct their arm to the target. What is therefore the role of vision in the emergence of reaching? In this article, we provide a brief review of prior work and present new data on the behavior of visual exploration and reaching in a little girl that we have followed longitudinally from the age of 10 weeks. In order to understand specifically how she used her vision during the few weeks preceding and following the emergence of reaching, we recorded her visual exploration of objects with an eye-tracker and we compared her performance to a group of 9-month-olds tested under the same conditions. Results indicate a change in object-directed visual exploration before and after the emergence of reaching. They also suggest that, over the first weeks following reaching onset, vision and action interact dynamically to create a tighter perceptual-motor mapping.
Translated title of the contribution | The role of vision in the development of infant reaching: A reevaluation |
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Original language | French |
Pages (from-to) | 49-60 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Enfance |
Volume | 2012 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2012 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
- Health(social science)
- Education
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Keywords
- Action
- Eye-tracking
- Reaching
- Vision
- Young infant