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Babies in front of the abyss! The visual cliff

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psychoSoph Comic 008 Babies in front of the abyss! The visual cliff Part 2
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Find out how babies learn to navigate their environment in this comic about the visual cliff. Here are a few comments on what you read in the comic.

If you want to know what such experiments actually look like in the lab, you can watch this SciFri video in which developmental psychologist Dr. Karen Adolph is interviewed about the visual cliff.

By the way, in the study comparing mothers and fathers, it made no difference whether the parents or babies were generally more anxious. I cannot tell you conclusively why there are so few studies with fathers. The reason may be that women still do a larger amount of care work, which includes raising children (e.g. report by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the source is German language). So, the babies tend to come to the lab with their mothers more often. This makes it difficult to complete samples with fathers that are large enough for analysis.

In addition, the studies did not state whether the parents were in heterosexual, homosexual, or non-binary relationships. So, we cannot say from the data whether the behavior would be different or the same in e.g. households with 2 fathers.

The comic also says that men show their feelings less outwardly. Please note that this really means SHOWING emotions, NOT FEELING them. You have probably already been in a situation where you had to stop yourself from laughing or were angry with someone but weren’t allowed to let it show. So, there is a difference between feeling and expressing emotions (Brandtstätter et al., 2018). Whether there are sex or gender differences for this would fill an entire psychoSoph chapter and goes beyond today’s topic. Keep in mind, though, that such things are always subject to the zeitgeist. In recent years, e.g., it has become more acceptable for men to be more open with their emotions, at least in Western culture.

Last but not least, I am always happy if you support psychoSoph on Ko-Fi. You can leave me a tip, get a monthly membership for which you get additional psychoSoph materials, or you can get digital downloads from the shop. This will help me keep the website running. Maybe it will also help in buying me a little coffee to drink while I draw. 😉

References

  1. Adolph, K. E., & Kretch, K. S. (2012). Infants on the edge: Beyond the visual cliff.
  2. Adolph, K. E., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Ishak, S., Karasik, L. B., & Lobo, S. A. (2008). Locomotor experience and use of social information are posture specific.
  3. Brandstätter, V., Schüler, J., Puca, R. M., & Lozo, L. (2013). Emotionen: Kulturelle und geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede. In Motivation und Emotion: Allgemeine Psychologie für Bachelor (S. 205–218).
  4. Campos, J. J., Langer, A., & Krowitz, A. (1970). Cardiac responses on the visual cliff in prelocomotor human infants.
  5. Fox, R., Aslin, R. N., Shea, S. L., & Dumais, S. T. (1980). Stereopsis in Human Infants.
  6. Möller, E. L., Majdandžić, M., & Bögels, S. M. (2014). Fathers’ versus mothers’ social referencing signals in relation to infant anxiety and avoidance: A visual cliff experiment.
  7. Nealey, S. M., & Riley, D. A. (1963). Loss and Recovery of Discrimination of Visual Depth in Dark-Reared Rats.
  8. Richards, J. E., & Rader, N. (1981). Crawling-onset age predicts visual cliff avoidance in infants.
  9. Richards, J. E., & Rader, N. (1983). Affective, behavioral, and avoidance responses on the visual cliff: Effects of crawling onset age, crawling experience, and testing age.
  10. Saarni, C., Campos, J. J., Camras, L. A., & Witherington, D. (2007). Emotional development: Action, communication, and understanding.
  11. Schwartz, A. N., Campos, J. J., & Baisel Jr, E. J. (1973). The visual cliff: Cardiac and behavioral responses on the deep and shallow sides at five and nine months of age.
  12. Slater, A., Mattock, A., & Brown, E. (1990). Size constancy at birth: Newborn infants’ responses to retinal and real size.
  13. Sorce, J. F., Emde, R. N., Campos, J. J., & Klinnert, M. D. (1985). Maternal emotional signaling: Its effect on the visual cliff behavior of 1-year-olds.
  14. Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Adolph, K. E., Lobo, S. A., Karasik, L. B., Ishak, S., & Dimitropoulou, K. A. (2008). When infants take mothers’ advice: 18-month-olds integrate perceptual and social information to guide motor action.
  15. Vaish, A., & Striano, T. (2004). Is visual reference necessary? Contributions of facial versus vocal cues in 12-month-olds’ social referencing behavior.
  16. Wagner, H. L., Buck, R., & Winterbotham, M. (1993). Communication of specific emotions: Gender differences in sending accuracy and communication measures.
  17. Walk, R. D., & Gibson, E. J. (1961). A comparative and analytical study of visual depth perception.