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Crawling versus walking infants' perception of affordances for locomotion over sloping surfaces
K E Adolph1, M A Eppler, E J Gibson
1Emory University.
Insights
Toddlers and crawling infants overestimate slope ascent abilities. Toddlers safely descend slopes by adapting, while crawlers often fall, highlighting the need to learn slope affordances.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Motor Control
- Perception-Action
Background:
- Infants develop diverse locomotor skills, including walking and crawling.
- Understanding how infants perceive and adapt to environmental challenges like slopes is crucial for development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare slope ascent and descent abilities between 14-month-old toddlers and 8.5-month-old crawling infants.
- To investigate how locomotor experience influences the perception of slope affordances.
- To examine adaptive strategies employed by infants when descending slopes.
Main Methods:
- Participants: 14-month-old toddlers (walking) and 8.5-month-old crawling infants.
- Task: Ascending and descending a sloping walkway at angles of 10, 20, 30, and 40 degrees.
- Data Collection: Observation of locomotor strategies, hesitation times, and successful/unsuccessful attempts.
Main Results:
- Both groups overestimated ascent capabilities.
- Toddlers adapted descent strategies (e.g., sliding), while crawlers frequently fell.
- Toddlers showed more exploration and hesitation on gentler slopes; crawlers on steeper slopes.
Conclusions:
- Infants must learn to perceive affordances for slope locomotion.
- Locomotor experience and exploratory activity are key to developing safe slope navigation skills.
- Adaptive strategies for safe descent emerge with walking experience.
Abstract:
14-month-old toddlers vs. 8.5-month-old crawling infants were encouraged to ascend and descend a sloping walkway (10 degrees, 20 degrees, 30 degrees, and 40 degrees). Infants in both locomotor groups overestimated their ability to ascend slopes. However, on descending trials where falling was more aversive, most toddlers switched from walking to sliding positions for safe descent, but crawlers plunged down head first and many fell at each increment. Toddlers touched and hesitated most before descending 10 degrees and 20 degrees slopes, and they explored alternative means for descent by testing out different sliding positions before leaving the starting platform. In contrast, crawlers touched and hesitated most before descending 30 degrees and 40 degrees slopes, and they never explored alternative sliding positions. In addition, we analyzed measures of locomotor skill and experience in relation to children's ability to perceive affordances. Findings indicate that children must learn to perceive affordances for locomotion over slopes and that learning may begin by fine-tuning of exploratory activity.
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