Object-Based Visual Attention in 8-Month-Old Infants:

At the age of a year to 17 month children start to get interested in looking through books for a small amount of time. They begin to follow simple directions and answer simple questions with gestures. Children this age recognise familiar objects ,people

The physical development of a baby in its first six months of life shows limited range of movement but the beginnings of an ability to respond to stimulus around them. They show their reaction to people, sounds and movement by turning their head toward whatever attracts their attention. They will watch an adult’s face whilst feeding, but have already begun to shows signs of recognition as they will smile when familiar people are around them either because they can see them

Figure 2 contains results from the experiment. The results bear strongly on the experimental hypothesis. The experimental hypothesis is that infants will be able to use words and images

Cognitively, the way infants process information undergoes rapid changes during the infant’s first year. For instance, the Piagetian theory of cognitive development includes (1) the sensorimotor stage in which infants, through trial an error, build their understanding of things around the world (e.g. imitation of familiar behaviour); (p. 203, Chapter 6); (2) building schemas (e.g. a 5 month old child can move or drop an object fairly rigidly, whereas an older child can do the same action but with more intentional and creative movement);(p. 202, Chapter 6) and (3) the concept of object permanence (e.g. an infant knows that an object exists even though it is hidden encourages the child’s perceptual skills and awareness of the objects ‘realness’ in the world (p.

The set of dolls would represent the female toys while the action figures would represent male toys. As this variable is the only one to be manipulated and change by the experimenters while everything else remains the same throughout the experiment, this is how it is shown to be the independent variable. The dependent variable would be the interaction the children will have with the bobo doll. The bobo doll is designed to be gender neutral and thus would not add any influence to the child’s attitude towards the doll. Aggressive play (such as hitting the doll) observed during this period would be recorded as masculine actions. Passive play (such as tapping the doll) would be observed and recorded as feminine

How do we know infants can see at birth? They can’t tell us. For this we depend on clues such as eye movement, light sensitivity and the appearance of the eye. Though an infant 's vision is present at birth the strength of their vision is far from mature. However, vision develops rapidly in infants, going from only being able to focus on images 4 to 30 inches away to a rapid ability to see details and shape (Berger, 2014). By 3 months these same infants with immature ability can see patterns color and motion. Surveys and medical research are regularly used to develop a better understanding of infant development.

In the article “Study: Early clue to why some children may have reading woes,” by Lauren Neergaard, Associated Press (08/19/15), it is claimed that scientists are looking for children as young as 3 at risk for learning difficulties. It explains how if the research go far, it may provide them “a biological looking glass,” saying if you have a 3 year old who is at risk, you should start improving their life so you do not lose their further learning experience. The author supports her statement by giving details and information about brain processing development. In order to approach their research, they attached a type of electrodes to children’s scalps and record patterns

This study is performed on 2.5 year olds, and tests their ability to use their knowledge of the

Gazing plays a central role in the social and cognitive development of a child. It is documented that from the age of 3 months, a child will begin to develop perceptual learning. An example of this hypothesis was tested with an actor holding a stuffed kitten in front a 1 year old. The 1 year old stared at the kitten longer, therefore the infant’s desire for what the actor was holding caused the infant to interpret the actor’s behavior as

This stage lasts from birth to twelve months. In this stage, infants gain knowledge about their surrounding by using their senses. (Clarke-Stewart, Gruber, & Fitzgerald, 2007, p. 154). They recognize the faces of their caregivers and may respond to smiles. At these stage infants are generally attracted to bright colors, and show response to sound by turning towards the direction of the sound. Studies have indicated that infants between the ages of three and seven weeks have the ability to recognize shapes and pictures of human faces (Goswami, 1994, p. 376).

Habituation is applied in discovering the perceptual systems which indicates that children advance earlier in developing perception compared to the acquiring the idea of the permanence of objects. Vision, hearing, smell and taste, language, touch, and pain are the early infant sensorimotor perceptual improvement in the infants’ mental growth. Motor development, required for the child to create relationships between vision, touch and

Infants begin experimenting different sounds and actions through a trial-and-error pattern in order to be exhibited to the parent’s attention often. During this stage, infants show goal-directed behavior displaying purposeful responses to other people. For instance, a crawling baby will show goal-directed behavior by crawling to a covert in the kitchen, where his sippy cups are stored, taking one out holding it up and grunt to his father as if to say, “I’m thirsty!” Their actions are purposeful. Another important thing happening in the secondary circular reactions sub stage four is that infants achieve object permanence. Object permanence is when an infant is watching an object which then disappears, the infant is still thinking about it or can try to look for object. Even if it is out of sight, it is still on

New born infants have poor visual acuity as opposed to adults. Visual acuity measures to what extent an individual can detect visual detail. Their lack of visual acuity means they see the world a more ill-defined manner. Adult visual acuity is thirty times the visual acuity of a new born (Van Hof-van Duin & Mohn 1985). Atkinson & Bradrick (1981), supported this and found that new born infants could only detect the separation of lines if they are 30 times wider than the minimum width adults can detect. There is at least a five-fold improvement by 6 months of age in acuity, though it takes several years for it to reach adult level, Brown & Yamamoto 1986. New born infants also have poor visual accommodation, needed to make sharp retinal images at different distances.

A study conducted by MIT neuroscientists, reveals how the brain achieves separate types of focused attention on faces, objects, or locations. The attention that focuses on the occurrence of a particular location, can be known as spatial attention. However, the attention that focuses on a particular object (rather than a location) within a scene, is known as object based attention. Spatial attention is based on the particular location in the visual world, unlike object based attention, which serves as the sought out observation of a particular object. In other words, if l was to lose my toothbrush, I would focus my spatial attention towards the bathroom, in contrast to my object based attention, which is seeking out the actual toothbrush. In

When reading the textbook of Chapter 11, the concept selective attention interests me. My understanding on this concept is a child's ability to select which tasks should be focused right now. I am not pretty sure if I am on the right track of thinking this, but selective attention reminds me of children with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. Both of the disorders are referred to children with problems on focusing a task and also be able to ignoring other tasks. Nevertheless, ADHD is relatively broader than selective attention. Besides that they are not able to focus, children with ADHD are also tend to be overly active. Also, boys are more likely to get ADHD than girls. I used to be sure that I got ADHD, but then my professor told