Rk. Clifton et al., MULTIMODAL PERCEPTION IN THE CONTROL OF INFANT REACHING, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, 20(4), 1994, pp. 876-886
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.