Describe a newborn's visual sensory capacity. How does a typical newborn respond to visual stimulation?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Vision is the least-developed of the newborn baby's senses. At birth, visual structures in both the eye and the brain are not yet fully formed. For example, cells in the retina, the membrane lining the inside of the eye that captures light and transforms it into messages that are sent to the brain, are not as mature or densely packed as they will be in several months. The optic nerve that relays these messages, and the visual centers in the brain that receive them, will not be adultlike for several years. And the muscles of the lens, which permit us to adjust our visual focus to varying distances, are weak.
As a result, newborns cannot focus their eyes well, and visual acuity, or fineness of discrimination, is limited. At birth, infants perceive objects at a distance of 20 feet about as clearly as adults do at 600 feet. In addition, unlike adults (who see nearby objects most clearly), newborn babies see unclearly across a wide range of distances. As a result, images such as the parent's face, even from close up, look quite blurred.
Although they cannot yet see well, newborns actively explore their environment by scanning it for interesting sights and tracking moving objects. However, their eye movements are slow and inaccurate. Although newborns prefer to look at colored rather than gray stimuli, they are not yet good at discriminating colors. It will take about four months for color vision to become adultlike.