When we go shopping at baby stores, we find that usually a lot of toys and baby gears are in pastel colours and we like that. What we don’t find much is high contrast items of black and white for babies. We do wish there was more out there and there is a trend of more coming. Great! Because here is why. Did you know that high contrast images give a huge benefit to babies?

History

In the early 1960s, Dr Robert Fantz, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University had found out that infants are actually capable of seeing. In addition, they also have a preference to look at certain visual patterns.

Following these findings, a lot of research has been done and one of the remarkable findings was from Dr T.G.R Bower, a behavioural scientist at the University of Edinburgh. Based on his research, babies tend to look at black and white items compared to plain solid white, red, and yellow.

Babies need visual stimulation

It is important to have visual stimulation for babies as it will be used to preserve the neural infrastructure which is important for visual learning. By studying the impacts of visual stimulation to children who have cataracts as infants, visual input immediately after birth gives a huge impact to mediate sensitivity to both basic and higher-level aspects of vision. (Lewis and Maurer 2009).

Babies are attracted to high contrast images

It is interesting to note the findings gathered on research that had been done to identify baby’s response towards various colours and images. Dr Phillip Salapatek, a child psychologist at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis had found that infants prefer to look at edges of a black triangle on white papers compared to the centre of black and white. This with different researches has proven that high contrast images of black and white are preferable by infants compared to a solid colour.    

Sources:

1. Fantz, R. “Maturation of Pattern Vision in Young Infants.” Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, Vol. 55 (1962), p. 907

2. Bower, T.G.R., “A Primer of Infant Development. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1977, p. 9.

3. Lewis, T.L. and Maurer, D. (2009) “Effects of early pattern deprivation on visual development,” Optometry and Vision Science, 86(6), pp. 640–646.

4. Salapatek, P.H., Kessen, W., “Visual Scanning of Triangles by the Human Newborn.”, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Vol. 3 (1966), pp. 155-67.

5. We would like to give credit to K.M Wade and Mumba Bra for compiling the research. You may visit their website at the hyperlink.

5. 1 https://kmwade.com/family/black-and-white-is-best-for-newborn-sight/

5.2 https://mumbabra.com/evidence-that-the-mumba-bras-babyfocus-print-helps-calm-babies/