Shape recognition in infancy: visual integration of sequential information.
To investigate the integration of visual information across space and time, infants watched the contour of a shape being traced out by a moving point source of light and then viewed 2 objects: 1 with the shape they had just seen traced and 1 with a novel shape. In the first study, which varied the number of tracings (velocity about 16.7 cm/sec), 12-month-olds looked longer at the novel object in all conditions, indicating that they recognized the similarity between the alternative object and tracing of like contour. Study 2, which varied velocity (14.7 and 7.4 cm/sec), stimuli, and the number of tracings, provided evidence for the generalizability of these results but indicated that performance suffered at the slower speed. Studies 3 and 4 held velocity constant (14.7 cm/sec) while varying the size of the tracings and age of the infant: 12-month-olds, but not 6-month-olds, recognized figures in instances where it took up to 10 sec to complete a single tracing. Because it took so long to complete many of the tracings, central rather than purely retinal mechanisms appear to be involved in integrating shape in these situations.
Rose
S A
SA
Department of Pediatrics, Kennedy Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461.
D000367:Age Factors; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D002666:Psychology, Child; D013997:Time Factors