9507773 ROCHAT Infants from birth are actively involved in exploring and acting in their environment, playing an active role in the rapid development of their cognitive capacities. Although research has provided much information on the early development of physical knowledge, and in particular how infants perceive, explore, and act on objects, little is known regarding what they perceive of their own body and how they develop an understanding of their own physical actions. Considering that the body is a primary object of knowledge, self-exploratory behavior in infancy is an essential aspect of early cognition. This research will investigate self-exploration and the perception of self-produced movements in infants between birth and 6 months. In the course of the first six months, infants spend much of their waking hours exploring their own body, bringing hand(s) to the mouth and in the field of view for long bouts of inspection. Questions remain as to what determines such behavior and what kind of perceptual information young infants pick up when engaging in self-exploration. This research will examine what perceptual information young infants are sensitive to and are capable of detecting while engaging in self-exploratory behavior. In particular, the focus will be on the early development of the capacity to perceive self-produced movements. A first experiment will investigate the early capacity to discriminate tactile and proprioceptive information specifying either self- or non-self- produced stimulation by neonates, 1-, and 2-month-old infants. Five other experiments will investigate what 2- to 6-month-old infants perceive while engaging in the exploration of self- produced movements. In particular, these experiments will document the early development of the perceptual ability to discriminate between different levels of congruence of proprioceptive, auditory, or visual feedback accompanying self- produced movements. In general, this research wil l provide new empirical data on the origins of knowledge about the body and self-produced actions, a fundamental aspect of human perception and cognition. It will provide information on the importance of self-exploration and self-initiated action in perceptual development, and in particular in the process of discovering the body and its effectivities. The collected data will be potentially useful for the assessment and prevention of hindered perceptual and cognitive development in children lacking opportunities for self-exploration and self-initiated actions due to physical or mental handicaps. ***
