Gibson and Walk (1960) - Visual Cliff

Aim

To see if young animals and human children were able to perceive depth innately, and therefor know not to crawl or walk over a visual cliff edge

Participants

36 children aged 6-14m

Materials

Glass pane over surface that dropped halfway across producing a visual cliff that there'd be a drop

Method

Each child was placed individually on a board in the centre of thee box

Children could either crawl to the deep or shallow end of the cliff

Mother stood at either and called the child to come to her

Results

100% moved across shallow side

11% crawled across deep side

Peeped through the glass at cliff edge and back away

Some'd test glass for solidity but still didn't cross

Crawled away from mother/ sat and cried bc couldn't get mother w/o crossing deep end

Conclusions

Children perceived depth by the time they could crawl

Not aware of danger of cliff edge (as they inadvertently used the glass on the deep side for support)

By the time children can crawl they have had months interacting w environment so hard to tell if ability is innate or learned