It recently has been shown that human infants have at least a limited ability to encode visual experience from the time of birth -- however, the nature of this initial capability remains uncertain. The present study will examine the qualities of the encoding process in a sample of 10-day-old infants, and compare the characteristics found at this early age with those observed in the same infants when they reach 3 months of age. The selected ages bracket a period of marked changes in a number of other measures of visual functioning. The method involves the combining of two experimental techniques: An infant-controlled habituation procedure will be used to induce visual encoding effects; and, concurrently, an eye-monitoring system will collect data regarding the exact manner in which the stimulus is scanned during the repeated habituation trails. From the latter data it will be possible to determine which particular features of the stimulus were examined, and for how long, as the stimulus was encoded. Inferences can then be drawn regarding a) the manner in which encoding proceeds at each of the two ages, b) how the process might change over the first months of life, and c) whether there might be stable individual differences in infants' responses across this early age period. By illuminating the nature of the encoding processes that are operative at around the time of birth, and clarifying the way in which they develop as infants grow older, we will enhance our understanding of how various characteristics of the visual environment might affect an infants development over the first several months of life.
| Bronson, G W (1991) Infant differences in rate of visual encoding. Child Dev 62:44-54 |
