Sensory system Essay Example
Sensory system Essay Example

Sensory system Essay Example

Available Only on StudyHippo
  • Pages: 4 (884 words)
  • Published: February 1, 2018
  • Type: Essay
View Entire Sample
Text preview

This essay will explore different perspectives on how infants perceive the world, particularly focusing on the viewpoints of empiricists and natives. The significance of cross-modal perception for auditory and visual perception will be examined, in addition to the interconnectedness between sensation, perception, cognition, and behavior for infants. Infants possess underdeveloped nervous systems at birth, which can make it challenging to determine their sensory capabilities. According to Pigged's empiricist perspective during the Sensorimotor stage, infants connect their actions with perceptions to comprehend early perceptions. This theory emphasizes experience as a vital factor in knowledge development. Conversely, the natives' viewpoint proposes that babies have an innate understanding from birth via Core Knowledge (Spells) and Social Knowledge (Meltzer). Sensation, perception, cognition and behavior are all fundamental components in interpreting our surroundings by

...

utilizing senses such as vision hearing taste smell position movement balance touch to obtain information about the world. Sensation is when stimuli like light and sound waves are detected by our eyes and ears; then signals are sent to the brain where they are organized and interpreted into meaningful perceptual experiences allowing us to comprehend what we sense.Our behavior is a response to our perceptions, which are associated with previous experiences. Although vision is considered more important than hearing, it is crucial for communication and gradually increases in sensitivity from before birth. Infants demonstrate preferences for certain sounds, such as speech patterns of "Mothers," at just four months old. When communicating with children, adjusting pitch and rhythm while emphasizing important words is typically the first thing they learn and produce. Research has shown that normal speech can even affect unhappy mothers indicating infants distinguish between happ

View entire sample
Join StudyHippo to see entire essay

and unhappy voices. Deceased and Fifer used sucking rates to determine what phonemes infants heard; initial exposure caused an increase in sucking rates but habituation caused them to drop without any peak rate upon subsequent presentations of the same sound. Additionally, newborns have the ability to hear while still in the womb due to their anatomical structures being mostly developed by birth. Infants are capable of distinguishing between variations of [b] and [p] since they are not yet "native listeners" until they become older as demonstrated by Page 114's preference for specific prose read before birth.Skuzzy's research revealed that infants acquire knowledge of their native language before they can speak, enabling them to distinguish sounds and speech better than most adults. The development of speech progresses in two directions, with less proficiency in recognizing non-native sounds but an enhanced understanding of their own language's characteristics. Although there are biological limitations due to the maturation of eye visual processes, a baby's eye structures are nearly fully developed at birth. Studies show that babies have visual preferences that aid in processing real-life stimuli, which can improve through experiences or actively constructing knowledge. The primary components of the visual system include the retina, optic nerve, visual cortex and lateral geniculate nucleus, with electro-chemical signals traveling down the optic nerve to project onto the visual cortex. However, immature foveal cone density results in blurred vision and lack of color intensity. During the first 2-3 months after birth, a baby's ability to scan images develops as their visual system matures. Infants differentiate between objects by looking more intently at certain things over others and this gaze duration can be measured

using 'Fantast's Viewing chamber.' Karamazov-Smith discovered that intensive visual processing begins at birth.According to Bushnell (Page 104), infants as young as 12 hours old prefer looking at their mother due to familiarity, which becomes more prominent over time. While novelty preferences are observed during habituation, Slater discovered that size constancy is an innate feature of perception present from birth. Infants recognize occluded objects by around 2 months old and understand that two touching objects are not considered one object between 5-6 months old. Additionally, support and gravity are learned from 6-8 months onwards while stereotyping capabilities develop between 3-6 months close to adult capability improving between 6-12 months. To examine depth perception in infancy, Gibson and Walk created the 'visual cliff', where all of the tested infants crawled over the visually solid side but only three crawled over the drop indicating awareness of potential hazards with comforting presence from their mothers. Auditory and visual input integration occurs rapidly in infants with simultaneous presentation necessary for learning sound as an attribute of an object according to Slater. Intercessory redundancy coordinates information across different modalities.Infants can use visible mouths to discern which face is associated with a particular voice, making voice-to-face coordination a clear example of intercessory redundancy. Even at 11 weeks old, infants expect single objects to produce single sounds and compound objects to make complex sounds when dropped. Infants heavily rely on redundant information when learning object names. Research suggests that they are inherently prepared for dynamic perceptual experiences during the learning process, which may be underestimated in experiments with less rich stimuli. In the Buttonholer experiment involving 15-34 month old infants, a moving wall

caused them to fall over backwards when it moved towards them and forwards when it moved away, likely due to kinesthetic feedback from the vestibular system. This same phenomenon was observed in 2-month-old infants. To determine environmental safety, individuals may engage in social referencing by observing their caregivers' behavior as a reference point.

Get an explanation on any task
Get unstuck with the help of our AI assistant in seconds
New