By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:18:51 +0000

Any person teaching this subject should examine the work of Witherington and Campos. I attended the 2006 International Conference on Infant Studies in Kyoto. The presidential address (by Dr. Campos) proposes that the visual cliff is really tapping into something different from depth perception. While reviewing file footage, they noticed that even the youngest infants would brace themselves before touching the shallow end (suggesting they already HAVE depth perception). The researchers searched for another explanation and found it in locomotion. The infants with the most profound aversion to the cliff were those with the most experience walking/crawling. What they believe is really happening is that the infant is learning to associate the physical environment with the visual environment. Crossing the glass just doesn’t “add up,” the body expects to fall, and when it does not, the body feels unusual. The phenomenon known as proprioception is in effect here. To test the hypothesis, they used a moving room paradigm, and sure enough, pre-walking infants were unfazed by the room, but children with experience walking/crawling moved with the room (forcing the physical and visual to coincide). To see more, please read their 2005 article entitled “Avoidance of heights on the visual cliff in newly walking infants.” God I love psychology! (Grad student in experimental psych)

Comments on: Visual cliff hanger

By: Kathleen