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Sensation And Perception In Infants

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Sensation and perception are tested in infants through the senses sight, sound, taste, smell, touch and pain. At birth newborns eye muscles and nerves are still developing, so their vision is not great. At birth infants can see an estimated 20/240, but in six months’ time the babies’ vision tremendously increases and they are able to see at 20/40. As infant’s vision increases they begin to see color and eventually recognize shapes. By 8 weeks of age infants are able to see color and around 3 months they are able recognize that an objects shape stays the same, even if in a different setting. As infants develop they not only are able to distinguish colors and shapes but also are able to develop the ability to perceive objects that are occulted are in fact whole.
Sound is another sensation and perception that is tested in infants. Studies have shown that infants are able to hear two months before they are born, so once they are born they immediately recognize the voice of …show more content…

At one time doctors did not believe that babies could experience pain, but recent studies have proven this to be wrong. Infants can feel touch, this is why when you touch them they turn their head and look at you. Because they can feel touch they can also feel pain. This was found because infants cry when being given a shot or having blood taken. They are able to feel pain like we are, they are just much more resilient in recovering than we are.
While these different sensations and perceptions are different many of them do go together, this is called intermodal perception. This type of perception is the integration of two or more senses at one time. An example of this would be infant’s reaction to sound. When an infant hears a noise they turn their head and look in the general direction of the sound. Typically this integration of different perceptions is seen the most after the first six months of

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