Newborns Are Sensitive to Impending Collision Within Their Peripersonal Space.

Immediately after birth, newborns are introduced within a highly stimulating environment, where many objects move close to them. It would therefore be adaptive for infants to pay more attention to objects that move towards them - on a colliding pathway - and could therefore come into contact and interact with them. The present study aimed at understanding if newborns are able to discriminate between colliding vs. noncolliding trajectories. To address this issue, we measured the looking behaviour of newborns who were presented with videos of different pairings of three events: approaching objects along a colliding course, approaching objects along a non-colliding trajectory, and receding objects. Results outlined that newborns preferred looking at the approaching and colliding movement than at both the receding and the approaching but non-colliding movements. Data also suggest the possible occurrence of a configural effect when two colliding events are displayed simultaneously. Furthermore newborns appeared to look longer at movements directed towards the Peripersonal Space than at those directed away from it.