Neonatal Stepping in Relation to Terrestrial Optic Flow

This experiment examined whether newborn stepping, a primitive form of bipedal locomotion, could be modulated by optical flow. Forty-eight 3-day-old infants were exposed to optical flows that were projected onto a horizontal surface above which the infants were suspended. Significantly more air steps were elicited by exposure to a terrestrial optical flow specifying forward translation than by a rotating optical flow or a static optical pattern. Thus, a rudimentary coupling between optical flow and stepping is present at birth, suggesting a precocious capacity in the newborn to perceive and utilize visual information specifying self-motion. The findings may help the early diagnosis of infants with visual or visual-motor deficits and the development of visually based interventions for disabled infants.