ABSTRACT
Perceptual exploration takes place in all the sensory modalities, although its extent and plasticity vary enormously from one modality to another. The predominant role played by the visual modality in the adult’s and the older child’s apprehension of the physical world, largely explains the abundance of experimental data relating to visual perceptual exploratory activity, the relative poverty of data relating to tactile, manual exploration, and the absence of studies on oral or auditory exploration. As a general rule the extent of visuo-motor exploration is measured by the number of separate fixations and the surface-area in which they are located. The visuo-motor activity of children has been recorded whilst comparisons were being made between pictures of houses. The number of different windows fixated at least once during the exploration of a pair of houses proved to be a good estimate of the amount of information abstracted by the child.
