Kids and adults do not see world the same way

Washington: Children are innocent, at least till 12, as they are unable to merge information received through different senses and make image of the visual world, like adults.

This does not only apply to combining different senses, such as vision and sound, but also to the different information the brain receives when looking at a scene with one eye compared to both eyes. The study has been conducted by Scientists at UCL (University College London) and Birkbeck, University of London. "To make sense of the world we rely on many different kinds of information. A benefit of combining information across different senses is that we can determine what is out there more accurately than by using any single sense," said Dr Marko Nardini, UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and lead author of the study. “The same is true for different kinds of information within a single sense. Within vision there are several ways to perceive depth. In a normal film, depth is apparent from perspective, for example in an image of a long corridor. This kind of depth can be seen even with one eye shut. In a 3D film, and in real life, there is also binocular depth information given by differences between the two eyes,” he added. The study looked at how children and adults combine perspective and binocular depth information. Results show that being able to use the two kinds of depth information together does not happen until very late in childhood – around the age of 12. Scientists asked children and adults wearing 3D glasses to compare two slanted surfaces and judge, which is the "flattest", given perspective and binocular information separately, or both together. It was not until 12 years that children combined perspective and binocular information to improve the accuracy in their judgements, as adults do. Hence, they came to the conclusion. The results are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.