Final answer:
Young infants have the capacity to think about the characteristics of invisible objects, indicating an early stage of cognitive development in understanding object properties. Their visual senses are developing, with a preference for human faces and recognition of their mother's voice, yet they exhibit more advanced cognitive abilities than once believed, as seen in their reactions to objects being present and then hidden.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding the Cognitive Abilities of Young Infants
Research concerning young infants reaching for objects in the dark shows that they are not demonstrating excellent night vision. Rather, it suggests that infants have a nascent ability to understand the characteristics of objects even when they cannot see them. This is indicative of young children's cognitive development, suggesting they can maintain an understanding of an object's existence and characteristics without visual confirmation. Thus, the correct answer to the research on how young infants reach for small and large objects in a dark room is D) are able to think about the characteristics of invisible objects.
Infants have limited color perception and a lack of depth perception at birth, which gradually improve as they grow and interact with their environment. They have a preference for faces and can recognize their mother's voice very early, indicating that critical sensory and cognitive abilities are present but not fully developed. Studies by researchers such as Baillargeon suggest that infants as young as three months may have an understanding of object permanence, which goes against the earlier theories of Piaget, who thought such cognitive abilities developed much later.
Overall, it can be concluded that while infants' senses are not yet fully developed, they have the beginning stages of cognitive abilities that allow them to reason about objects around them even when these objects are not visible, exhibiting a more advanced understanding of the characteristics of objects than previously thought.