w. Unlike adult eyes which can distinguish between a literally boundless number of different shades of light and color, an infant's eyes can only detect large contrasts between light and dark, or black and white.
Research has found that newborn’s eyes register contrasting color such as white, black and red the best. As they become toddlers, the color range increases with their development. This is the reasoning for the animations starting out with black and white checkered squares and rectangular shapes, slowly progressing into a larger variety of primary colors and shapes. With artsee smartsee's shape animation, infants' perception of unity and form is stimulated dramatically with a progressive development of their object perception skills.
* Johnson, S. P., Cohen, L. B., Marks, K. H., & Johnson, K. L. (In press). Young infants' perception of unity in rotation displays. Infancy.
Animation and Vocabulary | Vocabulary
The next two options on the DVD menu are "Animation and Vocabulary" and "Vocabulary". The only difference is that "Animation and Vocabulary" shows the same animated shape/music chapters, then artsee smartsee transitions into a 12-minute vocabulary section where 50 objects appear and transition from black-and-white shapes to contour line drawings, then to full color. With the "Vocabulary" option alone, an infant, child, or adult experiences only the 12-minute vocabulary section.
With the "Vocabulary" visual and audible experience, as each object or animal is introduced, you hear the identifying name of the object or animal. It appears first as a black and white shape, evolving into a contour line drawing. The image remains in a static form then eventually transitions into the either the actual object/animal, or a detailed and life-like simulation of same. In addition, you now have a background and foundation which creates an illusion of a real-life environment having gone from two-dimensional perception to the inflection of a three-dimensional environment.
The Vocabulary section offers six different languages to choose from: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese and Russian. As each object appears, a word is spoken which represents the object which is being displayed, (ie; car, butterfly, camera, etc.) The words are spoken in the specific language which has been selected. This is an excellent tool for infant object perception and segregation. This is vital in critical skill development.
* Cohen, L. B. & Cashon, C. H. (2001). Infant object segregation implies information integration. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 78,75-83.
The final option on the DVD is "Chapter Selection
Independent Evaluator Reports
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