Baby Vision

What can a baby see? 

Since birth, Science Baby has been staring at lights, and tracking a light around the room, and by 6 weeks she was tracking our faces and smiling back at us. Naturally, I've been conducting a few simple experiments at home.

Over the past few months, by grinning at her from different distances, and moving different objects in front of her, it was easy to figure out her visual depth and colour / pattern preferences (see also babycentre and AOA, who report similar findings).

Playing around with my D-SLR camera (changing focal length, colour depth and depth of field) I made these "baby-vision" photos, to get a better idea of what the world looks like to Science Baby...

Birth 

Baby can only focus to about 30cm (about the distance to the face of the person holding her). She prefers high contrasts - mainly orienting to bright light sources.

1 month

Baby's vision is still blurry, but responds to high contrast edges up-close, especially black and white stripes. Her eyes still wander independently and struggle to focus as the muscles aren't yet fully developed, but she is very interested in faces.

2 months

Baby still can't distinguish colour shades, but bright (primary) colours become more interesting, and she enjoys tracking colourful objects that move slowly in front of her.

3 months

Baby can now see up to 1m (She reliably smiles back to a grinning face 1m away). Her colour vision is much more developed too, and her ability to focus is much better as the eye muscles have now strengthened. She is now beginnning to develop her hand-eye coordination.

4-6 months

Baby is beginning to develop her depth perception, and her eyes will visibly move in tandem to focus at different depths. She will now smile back at people 3 metres away. If it isn't already, her vision will be close to the level of an adult soon.