Reaching in Very Young Infants

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Abstract
It has been claimed that reaching to visually presented targets is a valid indicator of perceptual capacity in very young infants. In a previous report we failed to replicate the findings on which that claim is based. Here we reanalyze some of the tapes of the first report, using a less restricted criterion for what constitutes a reach, and a much more detailed analysis of the various components of reaching behaviour. A number of components are readily distinguished and reliably observed. Infants of seven to twenty-one days show great individual variation in their reaching, from no such behaviour to a great deal. Certain clusters of the components of reaching can be used to define different reaching ‘styles’. The infants who reached most frequently in our sample all showed a dominant pattern of reaching, which in certain respects appears to be more mature than that of other babies. The finer analysis revealed no differences in the reaching behaviour to objects and pictures of objects, even among the most active reachers.