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Perceiving the affordance of contact in four- and five-month-old infants
1Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455-0345.
Insights
Five-month-old infants can perceive if an object is within reach. They adjust their reaching and leaning behaviors based on distance, demonstrating an understanding of contact affordances.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Infant Perception
- Motor Control
Background:
- Infants' ability to perceive object properties is crucial for interaction.
- Understanding how infants gauge reachability informs developmental theories.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate 5-month-old infants' perception of object distance and contact affordances.
- To examine how infants adjust reaching and leaning behaviors based on object proximity.
Main Methods:
- Infants were presented with a toy within and beyond their reach.
- Reaching and leaning forward behaviors were scored in 4- and 5-month-olds.
- Infants were categorized into 'leaners' and 'nonleaners' based on their responses.
Main Results:
- Both groups of 5-month-olds altered behavior when the object moved beyond reach.
- Nonleaners reduced reaching, while leaners initiated leaning forward.
- Evidence suggests 5-month-olds use object distance and the effect of leaning to gauge contact.
Conclusions:
- Five-month-old infants perceive contact affordances based on object distance.
- Infants demonstrate sensitivity to how body movements, like leaning, affect reachability.
- Arm length appears less critical for reach regulation in younger infants compared to 5-month-olds.
Abstract:
The focus of this study was on the ability of infants to perceive whether an object is positioned at a distance that would make contact possible. As a toy was presented, sometimes within and sometimes beyond reach, the initiation of reaching and leaning forward was scored. Infants were divided into leaning and nonleaning groups. Both leaning and nonleaning 5-month-olds changed their behavior dramatically when the object was placed beyond, as opposed to within, reach. The nonleaners showed a decline in reaching when this boundary for contact was crossed. The "leaners" did not; rather, they began to lean forward. These results suggest that 5-month-olds use information for the affordance of contact. 4-month-olds provided less evidence that arm length regulates reaching. 5-month-old infants acted as if they not only had some sensitivity to the absolute distance of an object but also to the effect that leaning forward has on their ability to make contact with a distant object.