Recap question

Which of the following groups are at an increased

risk of giving birth preterm?
A. Mothers having their second child
B. Mothers in their 20s and 30s
C.Indigenous mothers
D.Mothers who conceive via IVF
 Perceptual development
Jenny Richmond
PSYC2061

Reading: White 3rd edition

https://tinyurl.com/2061questions Chapter 4
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How do infants experience the world?

• “One great blooming buzzing confusion”

» William James- Principles of Psychology (1890)

3
 Outcomes
• By the end of this lecture you should be able
to …
– Describe the perceptual capabilities (olfaction,
taste, touch, vision) of young infants
– Use examples of perceptual narrowing to explain
how development is shaped by experience in the
domains of face, speech and intermodal perception

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 Audition
• Fetuses can hear in the womb and learn about
what they hear
– Newborns show a preference for their mother’s
voice
– The Cat in the Hat study (DeCasper & Spence,
1986)

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 Olfaction
• Olfaction is one of the first senses to develop
• Newborns are attracted to the smell of breast
milk at birth
% orienting

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Makin & Porter (1989)
 Olfaction
• Infants learn to recognise the smell of their
mother’s breast milk
% differential response

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Russell (1976) Nature
 Taste
• Taste receptors on the tongue develop
prenatally, infants learn about flavours they are
exposed to
» Via amniotic fluid
» Via breast milk
• Carrot juice study (pregnancy- breastfeeding)
– Carrot juice- Water
– Water- Carrot juice
– Water- Water

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Mennella et al., (2001). Pediatrics
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Ganchrow et al., (1983)
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Nasty baby food

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 Touch

• Newborns show reflexive

reactions to touch
– E.g. rooting reflex
• Touch also plays an
important role in
establishing relationships
with caregivers
– E.g. massage and preterm
infants

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 Vision
Visual acuity is poor at birth but improves rapidly
• Snellen fractional system 6/6 (or 20/20 imperial)
– Newborns 6/120-240
– 3 month olds 6/30
– By 12 months acuity is adult like

Learn more about how the Teller acuity

test works here
https://vimeo.com/101310031

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 Vision
• Infants prefer to look at….
– patterned over plain
– complex over simple
– red objects over other colours
– face over non-face stimuli

Why do you think that infants prefer faces over

other stimuli?

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 Perceptual narrowing
• Infants outperform adults at many perceptual
discrimination tasks

– Face perception
– Speech perception
– Intermodal perception

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 1. Face perception
• Young infants are able to
discriminate faces from every
species and race of the world
• As they gain more experience
with human faces, they lose the
ability to discriminate other faces
– How do we know?
• Visual paired-comparison task

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Familiarisation

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Test trial 1

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Test trial 2

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 Other-species effect
• Pascalis, de Haan, & Nelson (2002)
– 6-month olds, 9-month olds, and adults
tested on monkey and human Olivier Pascalis
discrimination task University of
Sheffield
Group Monkey face task Human face task

1. 6-month olds novelty novelty

2. 9-month olds null novelty

3. Adults null novelty

– By 9 months of age, infants have lost the ability

to discriminate between monkey faces
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Science, 296, 1321-1323
 Other-race effect
• Caucasian infants
– 3-, 6-, and 9-month olds
– Tested with Chinese, Middle
Eastern and Caucasian faces

Chinese Middle East Caucasian

3 month olds novelty novelty novelty

6 month olds null novelty novelty

9 month olds null null novelty

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Kelly et al., (2007)
 Other-race effect
• Chinese infants
– 3-, 6-, and 9- month olds
– Tested with Chinese, African and
Caucasian faces

African Caucasian Chinese

3 month olds novelty novelty novelty

6 month olds null novelty novelty

9 month olds null null novelty

Kelly et al., (2009) 22

 2. Speech perception
• Young infants can discriminate phonemes
from every language in the world
• With continued exposure to their native
language, they lose the ability to
discriminate sounds from other languages

• How do we know?
– Conditioned head turn procedure (CHT)

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Conditioned head turn procedure

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• Werker and Tees (1984)
– Discriminating phonemic contrasts

Janet Werker
University of British
Columbia

English speaking
infants are as
good as Native
Indian adults at
discriminating
Thompson
contrasts
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Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 49-63
• Werker and Tees (1984)
– Longitudinal data

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Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 49-63
 Check your understanding...
• A 12-month-old Japanese infant who is growing up in a
bilingual household (japanese/english) participates in a
study about speech perception. She is tested on the
conditioned head turn procedure and researchers test
her ability to discriminate between the phonemes L and
R, which are distinguishable in English but not in
Japanese. You would expect her to _______ when the
phonemes change because she is ______ to discriminate
between them.

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 3. Intersensory perception
• Young infants can discriminate between
different languages from visual input alone
• As they gain experience with how their own
language “looks” they lose this ability
How do we know?
habituation/dishabituation procedure

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Habituation/dishabituation

White text pg 107

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Which language do you speak?

Option 1

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Which language do you speak?

Option 2

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 Intersensory perception
English/French discrimination
Age group Monolingual household Bilingual household

4 month olds Increased looking Increased looking

6 month olds Increased looking Increased looking

8 month olds Did not increase looking Increased looking

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Weikum et al. (2007) Science
 Take home message
• Perceptual development is an experience-
dependent process
• With experience, the brain tunes and
becomes an expert in processing the specific
environment it has been born into
» Faces
» Speech contrasts
» What languages looks like

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