Baby’s Sense Of Sight: What Babies See

When it comes to the way babies process information, much of it is always devoted to the baby’s sense of sight. This is because the processing mechanism of visual information evolves and modifies during the first months of human life. Keep reading to learn more about what babies see!

In a study by the Max Planck community, researchers found that most verbalization when compared to the five senses suggests vision. This is impressive because people are born with numerous deficiencies that affect their sense of sight during the first months of life.

Baby’s eyesight

It is certainly clear to everyone that in the case of newborn babies, none of the nervous systems associated with human vision are yet fully developed. This includes important areas of the eye, such as the retina.

Babies do not see pastel shades

Fovea associated with color vision is poorly developed, although it undergoes development during the first months of a baby’s life. This means that babies have very little contrast sensitivity and develop little by little.

So babies only see red, white and black at birth. At the age of two months, they can distinguish most of the colors. When babies are 4-5 months old, they see all the colors.

So if you give your baby several toys in red, pink pastel, and green, he will most likely prefer a red toy. The baby always chooses toys with high contrast. If the baby is five months old, he may choose a green toy, because by that time the baby can already distinguish colors.

Traditional pastel shades and light colors are impractical for newborn babies in terms of what they are able to perceive. They cannot see these colors at birth. So choose red, white and black toys with high contrast as well as bright colors.

Eye muscles: do babies see in two?

The straight muscles that allow the eyeball to move, as well as the ciliary muscle that holds the lens, are too perfect and stiff at birth. These muscles affect the ability to monitor as well as the saccharine eye movements. When these muscles are released, vision improves during the first few months. This usually happens between the second and third month of life.

Due to the stiffness of the ciliary muscle, the lenses do not work perfectly. It is therefore difficult for babies to focus on things near and far for a few months after birth.

In addition, they see in two because these small flexible muscles have not yet developed babies ’binocular vision. Babies see two fields of vision that do not overlap.

Can babies notice details?

Visual acuity is the ability to see details or spatial frequency. Newborn babies see 30% of the details that adults are able to perceive in the first few months.

This improves from the fourth month of life until the first year of age, when they reach adulthood. In order for babies to see the details, it is important to place the object in such a way that it is not too far or too close to the baby. The optimal viewing distance for children is two meters.

How is it possible that one-month-old babies recognize their mother or father if their visual acuity is not very good? It can be said to be due to the range of baby options. People are multimodal, which means we are guided by more than one sense path. At the optimal distance, the information brought about by movement and odors increases, enabling identification through the integration of the senses.

Preferences

Babies love to look at things they are able to take hold of. Their limitations lead them to favor some things over others. When a baby is born, he often looks at the edges, shape, and angles of the object. This is because it is the part of the object that provides them with the most contrast to capture the object.

Thus, babies are initially unable to visualize faces. They don’t even notice what’s in the middle of the object or thing, they prefer the edges of the surfaces. After a month, they start looking in the face with eyes, mouth or chin.

The preference criteria for babies initially include that something is visible so that it can be defined by the object itself. Their preference depends on the inherent and distinctive characteristics of a particular object. During the second month of life, the preference criteria begin to be related to experience. The baby begins to explore the functional purpose of the object. The cognitive system develops and the baby can already determine if the stimulus is new and interesting.

Understanding objects as separate units from others

Another function that is not yet fully developed and that affects a baby’s vision is the ability to distinguish between surfaces, objects, and backgrounds. This makes a person understand the world as it is.

The baby will not be able to separate objects from the surface and the substrate until the fifth month of life. This means that when they look at the vase and the wall behind it, they think they are uniform.

From five months onwards, they will remain to separate the objects if they are sufficiently separated from each other. The movement helps them understand this difference. If objects are static, babies will not be able to separate them until at least five months of age.

As for objects sharing the same surface, babies will not be able to distinguish between the two objects until the fourth month of life. It doesn’t matter that they are different colors. The principle of continuity of joined surfaces and the principle of general motion are both relevant. The shapes alone do not tell babies anything.

Facial recognition and baby’s sense of sight

As we mentioned above, babies start looking at people’s faces during the first month. During the second month, great progress will be made and babies will become experts. At the age of two months, they have developed a high level of visual observation. Babies look at their faces more than any other stimulus and begin to show a preference for familiar faces.

At the age of six months, babies can recognize a face despite the change in expression and even when they see the face from the front or side. They already classify faces according to gender and are able to distinguish emotional expressions as well as react differently to charming and unattractive faces.

Visual perception is perhaps a major factor in the development of infant perception. The changes experienced during the first year of life can be considered miraculous. Among other things, the visual sense makes babies gradually explore the world around them.