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Arlette Streri, professor
of child psychology and Edouard Gentaz, research director at the Laboratoire
"Cognition et Développement" (Cognition and Development
Laboratory, CNRS-Université Paris V) have experimentally demonstrated
for the first time that the ability to coordinate information on the shape
of objects from hand to eyes exists in newborns. The results of this study
are at odds with theories based on perceptual learning and support nativist
theories based on the dependent capacities of innate perceptual structures.
An experiment was performed on twelve newborns, three-days old on the
average, chosen to carry out a classic "cross-modal recognition"
task in cognitive psychology. This test makes it possible to evaluate
the communication of information from hand to eyes. It is related to two
natural infant behavior patterns: on one hand, the child gradually becomes
familiar with a situation (habituation phase) and shows less and less
interest (exploration time gradually decreases). On the other hand, the
infant reacts to a new situation by exploring it for a longer time. Based
on this observation, the experiment is carried out in two phases: in the
first phase, the infant holds a small object in his right hand (unseen)
and a visual recognition test is then performed.
During the first phase, the experimenter puts a small object (prism or
cylinder) in the newborn's right hand until he "gets used" to
the shape of the object. In the second phase, the newborn is shown the
two objects side by side for 60 seconds. By measuring the time that the
infant looks at each object during these 60 seconds, it can be demonstrated
that the object previously held in the right hand holds the newborn's
visual attention for a shorter time than the object that he has not yet
explored with his hand. To be sure that this visual preference for the
new object is not due to the objects themselves, the behavior of twelve
other newborns was tested, but only for the visual phase. The results
show that the newborns looked at the two objects for the same amount of
time during the 60 seconds. This proves that the object previously explored
by the hand is familiar to the infant, as opposed to the other object
that is perceived as being new.
This is the first experimental proof that newborns can extract information
about the shape of an object in a manual tactile format and then transfer
it to a visual format, before ever having learned it from associations
related to their visual and tactile experiences.
References:
- Streri, A. & Gentaz, E. (2003). Cross-modal recognition of shapes
from hand to eyes in newborns. Somatosensory and Motor Research,
20, 11-16.
- Hatwell, Y., Streri, A. & Gentaz, E; (2000). Toucher pour connaître.
Psychologie cognitive de la perception tactile manuelle, Paris, PUF
Researcher
contacts:
Arlette Streri or Edouard Gentaz
Laboratoire "Cognition et Développement"
Tel: +33 1 55 20 58 14
e-mails: streri@psycho.univ-paris5.fr
or gentaz@psycho.univ-paris5.fr
CNRS contacts:
Françoise Tristani
Tel: +33 1 44 96 40 26
Fax: +33 1 44 96 49 19
Laetitia Louis
Tel: + 33 1 44 96 49 88
e-mail: laetitia.louis@cnrs-dir.fr
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