Development Of Perceptual Abilities

Front 1

Perceptual abilities

Back 1

When we're born we need some basic perceptual abilities for immediate survival but if all perceptual abilities were present at birth we wouldn't be able to adapt and adjust to different environments. Research has focused on what proportion of these are learnt (nurture) and which are innate (nature).

Hint 1

Some innate abilities, learn to adapt and adjust to environment

Front 2

Depth perception

Back 2

Ability to distinguish the environment as 3D and to judge distances. Monocular depth cues work with one eye, binocular cues rely on two.

Hint 2

Environment, distances, monocular, binocular

Front 3

Visual Constancies

Back 3

Concern how objects appear to remain constant and unchanging regardless of the viewing conditions. The main Constancies are size, shape and colour.

Hint 3

How objects appear, size, shape, colour

Front 4

Infant studies

Back 4

If a baby shows a perceptual ability, we can assume it to be innate as babies have no previous learning experience (nature).

Hint 4

Innate, no learnt experience

Front 5

Gibson & Walk

Back 5

Visual cliff study aimed to see if young babies would cross an apparent drop when beckoned by their mothers. The babies would not cross over the 'edge', suggesting depth perception to be innate. All babies were 6 months old, could have learnt. Ethical issue of protection

Hint 5

Innate ability, visual cliff study

Front 6

Gibson & Walk animal study

Back 6

Repeated the visual cliff study on animals that can move from birth (rats). They too would not crawl over the 'edge', further supporting depth perception being innate. Hard to generalise

Hint 6

Innate, animals could crawl from birth

Front 7

Evaluation

Back 7

Difficult to disentangle the effects of maturation and learning

Hint 7

Maturation ,learning

Front 8

Evaluation

Back 8

Babies cannot communicate verbally, so we can only infer what they perceive, and inferences can be incorrect.

Hint 8

Against, can't communicate