Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 18, 2026
Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
Multimodal perception in the control of infant reaching
R K Clifton1, P Rochat, D J Robin
1Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003.
Insights
Infants reaching for objects in the dark without visual target cues showed faster, shorter, and less accurate movements. Target vision, not hand vision, impacts infant reaching development.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Infant Motor Development
- Sensory Integration
Background:
- Understanding how infants develop reaching skills is crucial for cognitive and motor development research.
- Early reaching behavior is influenced by various sensory inputs, including visual and auditory cues.
- The role of visual feedback of the hand versus the target in guiding reaching is not fully understood in early development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of visual target information on infant reaching behavior in different lighting conditions.
- To compare reaching kinematics when target location is specified by sight alone, sound alone, or both.
- To determine the influence of visual feedback of the hand versus the target on 6-month-old infants' reaching accuracy and speed.
Main Methods:
- Six-month-old infants participated in three conditions: full vision, dark with a glowing/sounding object, and dark with sound only.
- Reaching movements were recorded using infrared videography and analyzed with a motion capture system tracking infrared-emitting diodes on the infant's hand.
- Kinematic variables such as reach speed, duration, and error rates were quantified for each condition.
Main Results:
- No significant differences in reaching behavior were observed between the full vision and dark conditions with a glowing target.
- Reaching for sounding objects in the dark (sound only) resulted in significantly higher movement speeds and shorter durations.
- Infants exhibited more reaching errors in the sound-only condition compared to conditions with visual target information.
Conclusions:
- Visual information of the target is critical for guiding accurate infant reaching behavior.
- The presence or absence of hand vision does not appear to significantly influence reaching kinematics in this context.
- These findings highlight the importance of visual target perception in the development of sensorimotor control for reaching in infancy.
Abstract:
Six-month-old infants were presented with sounding objects under 3 conditions of illumination: in full vision, in the dark with target location specified by a glowing and sounding object, and in the dark with location specified by sound alone. Reaching behavior was videotaped with an infrared camera, and hand movement was measured by infrared-emitting diodes on the hand that were tracked by a motion analysis system. No differences were found in reaching behavior for objects in the light and glowing objects in the dark. Reaches for sounding objects in the dark had higher speeds, shorter durations, and more errors compared to the other 2 conditions. These findings indicate that vision of the hand did not appear to affect infants' reaching in this situation, whereas vision of the target did.
Related Concept Videos
01:28Major Somatic Sensory Pathways
01:18Hierarchy of Motor Control
01:28Perception
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...