Compound-stimulus information processing by 3-month-old infants.
According to Cohen's (1973) component-compound developmental hypothesis, before 20 weeks of age, infants do not process compound-stimulus information when presented with simple colored forms. This hypothesis was examined in the present study. Eighty 3-month-old infants were presented with novel and familiar simple colored forms (e.g., red square vs. green square). Conditions were controlled so that novelty discriminations based on component- or compound-stimulus information could be separated. Contrary to the component-compound developmental hypothesis, the results indicate that by 12 weeks of age infants encode compound-stimulus information when presented with simple colored forms. These results are discussed in terms of the property-set model of stimulus recognition (Hayes-Roth & Hayes-Roth, 1977).
D002657:Child Development; D003118:Color Perception; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008568:Memory; D008960:Models, Psychological; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011601:Psychophysics; D013997:Time Factors