The Pleasure of Seeing in Children

Light, colours, curves and contrasts ... Babies do not tire out of their environment. All this information stimulates their intellect. They will soon be able to distinguish face and imitate certain expressions.

After 6 weeks, the infant starts to differentiate objects from one another. He begins to organize the time by remembering the past and anticipating the future. He leans forward his body when his mother approaches his bed to pick him up. He opens his mouth at the sight of the bottle. The visual information is analyzed, understood, and the child is preparing for the next step. It is therefore the interconnection between different perceptions.

Faces distinction

The perception of faces by infants is studied by psychologists. If we give a young infant two drawings, one representing a human face and the other a geometric figure, the child will take longer looking at the human face. Does this mean that the child recognizes the face? It seems not. Up to 2 ½ months, the child is attracted by pictures which are rich in curves and are more complex. Initially, the drawing and a photograph of a face are for him a set of lines, points and surfaces which are more or less gray. He will understand later at around 6 to 7 months that these points and lines represent a face.

Of course, much earlier, he already recognizes his mother from her face contours. These involve several elements: the way his mother picks him up from the cradle, the way she holds him in her arms, the tone of her voice, smell and expression of her face. Isolated, each of these components is more or less effective. The smell alone is enough to identify the mother as early in the second week. The voice is adequate at the end of the first month and familiarization of the face comes after. The association between a voice and a familiar face has been demonstrated in children having 3 months. Babies of that age were placed in front of their parents. During the experiment, they remained motionless refraining from any gestures and words. A loudspeaker, placed between the two parents made him hear voices of his mother and father alternately. Without hesitation, the baby then directs his gaze to the parent of whom he heard the voice.

The ability to imitate

The newborn is not only capable of seeing but also of imitating. This capacity has long been ignored. René Zazzo had noticed this in 1945 when her son aged 3 weeks put out his tongue and imitated her. At the time, this discovery went against the theories of Piaget, Wallon and Spitz. All three refused to admit these remarks. They said that before the age of 3 months the nerve pathways were not sufficiently developed to allow this kind of exercise.

Zazzo repeated the procedure of taking out her tongue to the newborn and continued her observations which were confirmed in the United States in 1971. Meltzoff has recently shown that these imitation opportunities exist from birth. The youngest baby successfully tested by the researcher had ... only 45 minutes!

These experiments tend to prove that there exists from birth there are connections between several modes of perception as the newborn shows a complex expression during the first time he sees.

The first emotional exchanges between mother and newborn are visual: all parents have experienced this extraordinary feeling of being watched by the eyes of the newborn. At the same time, the mother fixes eyes of her baby. Both eyes attract each other and are both highly emotional and interrogative.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Zazzo