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*Vision- From the first minutes an infant is born, they are able to detect changes in brightness and visually track a slow-moving object or image. At birth, visual acuity is 40 times worse than an adult, but improves to 20/120 in the first month of life. Newborns can perceive light and dark, focus on nearby objects, and see simple patterns. The infant's world is blurry due to limitations in visual accommodation (it takes 6 months to a year for an infant to be able to see as well as an adult). And by 2 to 3 months, color vision is mature. For infants, perception is being organized. Their first challenge is to be able to separate the visual field into distinct objects. Also for infants, form perception changes. One-month-olds focus on the outer contours of forms such as faces, where as two-month-olds explore the interiors of figures thoroughly. Infants are sensitive to cues about the wholeness of objects, particularly object movement. Four-month-olds use common motion as a cue and six-month-olds can determine the boundaries or edges of stationary objects. Certain patterns are able to capture the young infant's attention. Patterns that have a large amount of light-dark transition, or contour. Displays that are dynamic (as opposed to static) or contain movement. And patterns that are moderately complex. Infants are able to perceive faces by two or three months of age. Most infants of crawling age clearly perceive depths and are afraid of drop-offs.

*Hearing: Hearing is more developed than vision at birth. Young infants show a preference for speech over non-speech sounds. Infants 2 to 3 months old can discriminate between similar constant sounds. And newborns can recognize vowel sounds from their native language. Unborn fetuses can distinguish their mother's voice from a stranger's voice (this was discovered through researchers measuring fetal heart rate). Infants begin life biologically prepared to learn any language. By year one, largely insensitive to contrasts of sounds not made in their native language. Over the first year, show increased sensitivity to native language sounds.

*The Chemical Senses- Taste and Smell: Infants can distinguish sweet, bitter, and sour tastes at birth (while showing a preference to sweets). Flavor preferences are highly responsive to learning. Genetic variation can account for a lot of the variation in perception of bitterness and sweetness. The sense of smell is developed at birth. Newborns prefer the smell of their own amniotic fluid, which suggests that olfactory cues are detectable prenatally. Exposure to familiar smells can calm newborns.

*The Somaesthetic Senses (sense of touch, temperature, pain, and kinesthetic sense): The sense of touch is developed at birth. Newborns are sensitive to warmth, cold, and pain (pain is responsive to learning). Breastfeeding during painful events reduce behavioral signs when infants are experiencing pain.

*Influences on Early Perceptual Development: Multiple sensitive periods during which vision can be influenced by experiences. The first three months of life are critical (for normal development, damage, recovery). Early exposure to auditory stimulation affects the developing brain and influences auditory perception skills. People from different cultures differ little in basic sensory capacities. Perceptions and interpretations of sensory input can vary.

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*Locomotion- The Coupling of Perception and Action: Locomotion is a vital aspect of development. Infants acquire gross motor skills before mastering fine motor skills. Early motor development follows the cephalocaudal and proximodistal principles. It takes an average of 13 starts and stops over a period of days before toddlers show consistent performance of a motor skill.

*Motor Skills as Dynamic Action Systems: Infants engage in rhythmic stereotypes before a new skill is learned. Dynamic systems theory; developments take place over time through a
"self-organizing" process. Children use sensory feedback when trying different movements to modify their motor behavior in adaptive ways. Motor milestones, like walking, are learned outcomes of a process of interaction with the environment. Researchers found toddlers could adjust their walking to changes in both their body dimensions and the slope of a walkway.

*Integrating Sensory Information: Senses function in an integrated way at birth. For example, newborns will look in the direction of sound. Cross-modal perception (recognize through one sense an object familiar through another); as the senses develop, toddlers become adept at cross-modal perception.

*Advances in Attention: As children get older: attention spans become longer, they become more selective in what they attend to, and are better able to plan and carry out systematic strategies for using their senses to achieve goals. Beyond ages 8 to 9, there is not much increase in length of sustained attention. Children become more accurate on tasks requiring sustained attention. As children get older, selective attention increases. Research suggests that performance of young children will be better if distractions are kept to a minimum.

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*Sensory and perceptual capacities decline gradually with age because of: A rise in sensory threshold (sensitivity to very low levels of stimulation is lost), declining perceptual abilities, and difficulties in older adults in processing or interpreting sensory information.

*Vision: Older adults have greatest difficulties in processing visual information when the situation is novel and when it is complex.  They have fewer problems when there are clear expectations about what to do and when the task is not overly complicated.

*Hearing: Hearing impairment is three times as prevalent as visual impairment. A majority of individuals older than 65 have at least mildly impaired hearing. Most age-related hearing problems are due to degeneration of cochlear hair cells, surrounding structures, and the neurons leading from them to the brain. This results in loss of sensitivity to high-frequency or high-pitched sounds. After age 50, lower-frequency sounds also become difficult to hear. Men lose sensitivity at a faster rate.

*Speech Perception: Older adults typically have more difficulty understanding conversation with age-related declines in auditory sensitivity and cognitive declines. Auditory tasks are more difficult for older adults when they are novel and complex.

*Aging of Chemical Senses: There is a general decline in sensitivity to taste. Men show greater decline than women. Middle-aged and older adults have difficulty discriminating among tastes that differ in intensity. Although, they do not have difficulty differentiating degrees of sweetness. The ability to perceive odors also declines with age. Older adults can still identify and remember unpleasant odors but there is some decline in their ability to detect and remember pleasant odors. Under optimal conditions, many older adults will not experience deficits in taste and smell.

*Changes in the Somaesthetic Senses: Detection threshold for touch increases and sensitivity is gradually lost from middle childhood. Older people may be less sensitive to changes in temperature. Age differences in pain thresholds are not large or consistent.

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2) How does this information apply to week 3's topics of sensation, perception, and action? 

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2) How does this information apply to week 3's topics of sensation, perception, and action? 

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In the first video, it explains how the brain communicates with the body in order to perceive our sensations to detect the situation you're in and how to navigate it for the best outcome. Our nerves send electrical signals to the brain that allow us to carry out specific actions.
In the second video, it explains how our touch sensors help us respond instantly too whatever is happening in the environment around us. Our nerves send signals to the brain and those signals control how our body functions. These sensations can enable us to survive in extreme conditions. For example, if you are stuck in the desert with extreme high temperatures, your body senses the heat and starts sweating in order to cool your body so that you do not overheat.

This information helps us to understand how the body is able to perceive information and sensations from the outside world, so that we can react in an appropriate response. Starting at the beginning of life, we begin to develop our sensations and learn how to perceive them. It is important to understand how our these functions work in order to fully grasp the concept of why these functions are important. We use sensation and perception everyday starting from the moment we are born and is a key factor in our ability to survive. In week 3, we are discussing the changes and development of sensation and perception throughout life, from the infant to the older adult. And this information ties into how the brain and body works in these functions in order for us to be able to use them in everyday life.