"Oh No, He put it in his mouth AGAIN!"

In the study by James et al., titled Some views are better than others: evidence for a visual bias in object views self-generated by toddlers, researchers are exploring the differences in how children 18-24 months of age prefer to view and hold objects. They hypothesize that toddlers and adults, both tend to favor a planar view of objects which is said to be "influenced by interesting surface properties and ease of holding". They tested these biases by handing children objects that were either unencased or encased in plexiglass and placed in different orientations within the plexiglass box, one being the planar (3/4) view where the more interesting properties of the object were reported to be seen. The children were also handed the plexiglass box in "randomly chosen orientations" regardless of how the object was positioned in the box. The objects were large enough that the child could easily hold and manipulate. The researchers found that "total holding time" increased when children held the objects that were encased in the box at the planar point of view over an unencased object as well as the objects in different positions and were easily identifiable throughout the study in this orientation.

"So does this mean I have to do the math to position all my child's toys for them to learn what it is now?" The short answer is no! Thank God! This just means that your child is learning what an object is by what they are repeatedly seeing from their preferential "planar view". Remember they are a lot smaller than you so they see things a lot differently than you and I. It goes back to the idea of specific feature recognition. If they can only see the top of the cookie jar but they know every time that top comes off they get a cookie they will then automatically associate that top with "the place cookies come from" (better that than have them ask you where babies come from 😅).

#TODDLERTIP... A way to help nurture this form of object recognition is by active learning processes early in development. Get a pretend kitchen and make imaginary dinner with them, pretend the stove is actually hot and you have to be careful not to burn yourself! Put actions to objects!

































References

James, K. H., Jones, S. S., Swain, S., Pereira, A., & Smith, L. B. (2014). Some views are better than others: evidence for a visual bias in object views self‐generated by toddlers. Developmental Science, 17(3), 338-351.


https://www.amazon.com/kidkraft-wooden-play-kitchen-stools/dp/b009f7t6f4?tag=indifash06-20

https://www.deviantart.com/madamebutterfly94/art/Fimo-penguin-from-different-perspectives-738028095