Visual cliff

The visual cliff (English visual cliff ) is an experimental arrangement for spatial perception, which dates back to Eleanor J. Gibson and Richard Walk ( 1960). In an attempt toddlers or infants are placed in the middle of a table whose table top is made of transparent glass. One half of the table plate is lined with a checkerboard pattern. In the other half of the chess board pattern will be continued on the ground, that is about 1 m below the table top, so that a impression of depth.

Children who begin to crawl just move usually does not have the side on which the checkerboard pattern is continued on the ground when they are lured from their mothers from this page. However, different with the table - half, which is underlaid directly with a checkerboard pattern.

In infants, who can not move around, you may notice differences in heart rate, depending on which side of the table they were facing with his head. The heart rate was reduced when they were about the half, wherein the checkerboard pattern is continued on the ground, while it was higher in the underlying page. Although this result is contraindicated, it shows that even infants are able to perceive depth.