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Why Did Experimenters Develop the Visual Cliff?

Robert Thorne • • 7 min read
Why Did Experimenters Develop the Visual Cliff?

In order to investigate depth perception, psychologists E.J. Gibson and R.D. Walk developed the visual cliff test to use with human infants and animals. 1 Earlier research had revealed that infants will respond to various depth cues

depth cues
The relative size of an object serves as an important monocular cue for depth perception. It works like this: If two objects are roughly the same size, the object that looks the largest will be judged as being the closest to the observer. This applies to three-dimensional scenes as well as two-dimensional images.
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even before they are able to crawl.

What is the purpose of the visual cliff experiment?

The visual cliff study done by Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk set out to fill in this research gap. They wanted to know if young infants were born with depth perception, could recognize the dangers of a large fall, and if they could ever be enticed to face such dangers.

What is the visual cliff and what does it teach us?

The visual cliff is a test given to infants to see if they have developed depth perception. The way it works is there is a platform that is covered with a cloth that is draped all over the place (on the platform, down to the floor, all over...).

Robert Thorne
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Robert Thorne

Robert Thorne covers electric vehicle innovations, autonomous driving systems, global mobility trends, and automotive engineering developments.