Quote:
|
Originally Posted by cookmo
In my psychology text, the kitten study is done with 4 month old babies as a depth perception test. These babies are put on a red and white checked platform. Halfway across the platform the pattern stops, and the rest of the platform is glass. The babies will crawl all the way untill the glass and stop, because they are afraid of falling. They will not even continue on when their mothers call them. Perhaps one could argue that these babies learned to fear falling before four months, but in my opinion that is unlikely.
|
Four month old kittens? (If not, why is it called the kitten study?) I've seen evidence that even as old as 1yr human babies would just keep right on crawling. Of course, I don't have a drastic pattern change - the carpet in the living room continues down the stairs. So perhaps it's the pattern change and not the depth perception? I'm not going to let them keep crawling and find out!
But I sure would like to know. My baby girl is getting adept at cruising up the stairs and backing down again, but that's with me hovering around her. My 9wk old kittens didn't seem to learn their sense of depth until they were around 5 or 6 weeks, but they definitely have it now.
Ngdawg: isn't that gripping reflex just called the gripping reflex? I may have seen it referred to as Darwinian.
There's the startle reflex too, but I'm not sure what that's called.