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Until the middle of the twentieth century, most researchers believed that infants possess only the most rudimentary ways of perceiving the world. Then, in the 1950s, innovative investigative strategies allowed researchers to better assess the complexity of infants' perceptual abilities.Studies on the visual perception of infants used gaze time as an indicator of interest or preference. In Study 1, 36 babies age 2 weeks to 4 months were shown 6 pictures of identical size simultaneously, such as pictures of a bull's-eye, a bird, three squares of different colors, and a human face. Researchers recorded the time the infants spent looking at each picture and calculated the mean gaze time for each picture. It was found that the babies gazed far longer at the human face than at any other picture.Studies on the auditory perception of infants also employed gaze time as an indicator of preference. In Study 2, researchers exposed infants age 1-4 months to four types of auditory stimuli. The first type was human speech consisting of a series of randomly selected short words, each stated in a neutral tone, followed by a second of silence. The other stimuli included environmental sounds (eg, forest noises); neutral, human, noncommunicative sounds (eg, sneezing, coughing, throat clearing); and monkey vocalizations. A red light was shown on a computer monitor to attract the babies' attention. Once their gaze was fixed on the monitor, they were shown a picture of a checkerboard along with the auditory stimulus for up to 40 seconds. The time the infants gazed at the monitor was recorded. Results indicated that babies preferred human speech to any other sound.
Adapted from S. Shultz and A. Vouloumanos ©2010 Taylor & Francis Group, and R. L. Fantz ©1961 Scientific American.
-Place theory is most appropriate for explaining how infants:

Question

Passage
Until the middle of the twentieth century, most researchers believed that infants possess only the most rudimentary ways of perceiving the world.  Then, in the 1950s, innovative investigative strategies allowed researchers to better assess the complexity of infants' perceptual abilities.Studies on the visual perception of infants used gaze time as an indicator of interest or preference.  In Study 1, 36 babies age 2 weeks to 4 months were shown 6 pictures of identical size simultaneously, such as pictures of a bull's-eye, a bird, three squares of different colors, and a human face.  Researchers recorded the time the infants spent looking at each picture and calculated the mean gaze time for each picture.  It was found that the babies gazed far longer at the human face than at any other picture.Studies on the auditory perception of infants also employed gaze time as an indicator of preference.  In Study 2, researchers exposed infants age 1-4 months to four types of auditory stimuli.  The first type was human speech consisting of a series of randomly selected short words, each stated in a neutral tone, followed by a second of silence.  The other stimuli included environmental sounds (eg, forest noises); neutral, human, noncommunicative sounds (eg, sneezing, coughing, throat clearing); and monkey vocalizations.  A red light was shown on a computer monitor to attract the babies' attention.  Once their gaze was fixed on the monitor, they were shown a picture of a checkerboard along with the auditory stimulus for up to 40 seconds.  The time the infants gazed at the monitor was recorded.  Results indicated that babies preferred human speech to any other sound.
Adapted from S. Shultz and A. Vouloumanos ©2010 Taylor & Francis Group, and R. L. Fantz ©1961 Scientific American.
-Place theory is most appropriate for explaining how infants:

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

11ecba2d_0d29_f240_a3bf_d79860aae5c3_MD0008_00 Auditory processing includes all the activities involved in the brain that recognize and interpret sound stimuli. For example, the brain perceives the amplitude of the sound wave as loudness and the frequency of the sound wave as pitch; the brain perceives the source of the sound by comparing the difference between the arrival time and intensity of the sound hitting the two ears. Place theory explains the perception of sound pitch (how high or low a tone is). Inside the cochlea, specific sound wavelengths generate basilar membrane vibrations at specific loci. Each locus (place) corresponds to a slightly different frequency. Hair cells located at the base of the basilar membrane are activated by high frequency sounds, and hair cells located at the apex of the basilar membrane are activated by low frequency sounds. Place theory is most appropriate for explaining how the infants in Study 2 processed the pitch of the auditory stimuli. (Choice A) Place theory explains how the ear perceives high- and low-pitched frequencies. It does not address how sensory stimuli from different modalities can become linked. (Choices C and D) Place theory is relevant to pitch perception during auditory processing. It does not explain visual phenomena, such as how people perceive the features of a human face or how people perceive distance. Educational objective: Place theory states that specific wavelength frequencies generate vibrations at specific loci on the basilar membrane of the cochlea. Hair cells located at the base of the basilar membrane are activated by high frequency sounds, and hair cells located at the apex of the basilar membrane are activated by low frequency sounds.

Passage Until the Middle of the Twentieth Century, Most Researchers Believed