Psychology - Research Paper Example

It was meant to understand the development process. The purpose of the study The study was carried out in order to find out whether depth perception was innate or it was learned (Hock, 95). It was carried out to further understand the visual ability of human beings and animals in interpreting the world around them. It was raised because a lot of psychologists believed that depth perception is the most important visual skill that that human beings and even animals needed. The two researchers also pointed out that the reason to this study was the discovery that infants who were at the creeping stage were prone to falling from high or low places.

They noted that these infants began avoiding such accidents by their own when their muscular coordination matured. The position of the researchers was that depth perception was automatic, out of the biological equipment and therefore not out of experience. The method The study was carried out using a devise that was called a ‘visual cliff’ in order to determine whether human and animal infants placed on the cliff were able to perceive that they were going to fall and avoid it. The visual cliff was a four-foot table with a top that was made from thick clear glass.

Under half of the table was a solid surface that had red and white checkered pattern and far beneath was the same pattern. There was a shallow side that appeared to be a sudden drop off but it was an extension of glass and a deep side. 36 infants were used for the study with their mothers participating too. The infants were put at the center of the visual cliff and beckoned by their mothers. They were beckoned from the deep side first then the shallow side. Similar tests were carried out on animal infants but without their mothers’ beckoning.

The animals were chicks, lambs, turtles and rats. Results After the study was completed, nine children refused to move out of the center of board. Other 27 infants crawled off the board when their mothers called them from the shallow side. Only 3 of the infants crawled through the deep side when their mothers beckoned though they did this with a lot of hesitation. Most of the children crawled away from the shallow side or cried in frustration for not reaching their mothers when they were called from the cliff side.

Some peered through the glass in the deep side and backed away while others patted the glass, felt its solidity but refused to cross. Baby chickens did not step off the deep side. The lambs would not jump over the deep side but jumped through the shallow side. The deep side frightened them which show that they were well aware of the depth. The rat did not show any preference on the shallow side because it did not depend on vision but rather on the smell. Kittens, though nocturnal like rats, they displayed excellent depth perception.

This is because they depended much on their vision. The turtles displayed poor results in all the animals that were studied. 76% of them crawled to the shallow side while 24% went through the edge. This was explained to be so because the turtles lived in water and were able to note that the depth was not real. Another assumption to explain this was that the turtles had no fear of fall because they lived in the water. The study relates to the course in psychology of human perceptions. This is evident from the fact that human beings perceive things differently depending on their stage in life and also where their origins are