MULTIMODAL PERCEPTION IN THE CONTROL OF INFANT REACHING

Six-month-old infants were presented with sounding objects under 3 con ditions of illumination: in full vision, in the dark with target locat ion specified by a glowing and sounding object, and in the dark with l ocation specified by sound alone. Reaching behavior was videotaped wit h an infrared camera, and hand movement was measured by infrared-emitt ing diodes on the hand that were tracked by a motion analysis system. No differences were found in reaching behavior for objects in the ligh t and glowing objects in the dark. Reaches for sounding objects in the dark had higher speeds, shorter durations, and more errors compared t o the other 2 conditions. These findings indicate that vision of the h and did not appear to affect infants' reaching in this situation, wher eas vision of the target did.