Review Questions for Visual Development
These questions are for review purposes only. They will not necessarily
be included on the exam, nor do they necessarily cover all material that
may be examined. They are meant only to help you isolate areas in which
you may need additional review.
What is the "preferential looking technique"? What assumptions is this
technique based on? What can we determine about infants’ perception with
this technique? Give an example of this technique and describe what can
be concluded about infants’ perception using the example.
What is habituation? What is dishabituation? What can we learn using habituation
and dishabituation over that of the preferential looking technique? Give
an example of an habituation experient.
What is a baby’s visual acuity at birth? Describe two reasons why an infant
has low acuity.
Compare a 1-month old infant’s contrast sensitivity to that of an adult.
How is this thought to relate to a newborn’s supposed ability to visually
recognize his or her mother?
Can infants perceive the same colors as adults? Give an example of how
you go about testing this. At what age do we assume that infants perceive
approximately the same colors as adults do?
At what age has it been determined that infants can perceive depth using
binocular cues? How is this tested? What about the use of pictorial depth
cues? Do they develop at the same rate as binocular cues?
Can newborns perceive motion? Can they follow moving objects smoothly with
Describe the various ways in which development and experience can interact.
What is selective rearing? Give an example and briefly describe the conclusions
that can be drawn from the example.
What is astigmatism? How is this disorder thought to affect neurons in
the visual cortex? Briefly describe the results suggested to support these
What is the oblique effect? Some say that humans living in large cities
are experiencing a form of selective rearing in that we don’t encounter
many oblique lines in our environment. Briefly describe the experiment
discussed in class which was designed to examine this question. What conclusions
were made from this experiment?