Spotty Bear

Babies see in Black & White

Babies can only see in black and white.

Until Spotty Son Bear was about six months old, one of his favourite toys was a circular piece of white cardboard with black concentric circles. He spent minutes at a time staring at this high-contrast image, and waving it in front of his eyes (although to be fair, we often did the waving for him).

Babies' vision is a lot worse than adults' vision. While their hearing and sense of touch is already very good as soon as they are born, it takes a while for their brains to develop sufficiently to be able to focus properly, and to understand the colours that they are seeing. This means that babies (especially in the first few months) prefer looking at high-contrast images. Although this can be any combination of colours with high contrast, black and white tends to be a favourite. Indeed there are many toys and pictures that you can buy that are black and white.

As babies get older, their brains get better and better at understanding the information that their eyes are sending them. This tends to start off with primary colours before developing into an ability to distinguish more muted shades.

References:

Your Infant's Vision Development

www.allaboutvision.com/parents/infants.htm

Developmental milestones: Sight

www.babycenter.com/0_developmental-milestones-sight_6508.bc

Posted on 24 August, 2013  | Tags: Child Development  | 0 Comments