Perception of numerical invariance in neonates.
40 healthy, normal newborn infants were evaluated with reference to their ability to discriminate among visual stimulus arrays consisting of 2 versus 3 or 4 versus 6 black dots. Infants made this discrimination within a habituation/dishabituation paradigm for the small number sets (2 to 3 and 3 to 2) but not for the larger sets (4 to 6 and 6 to 4). We argue that this suggests the ability to abstract numerical invariance from small-set visual arrays and may be evidence for complex information processing during the first week of life.
D001288:Attention; D003210:Concept Formation; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D005556:Form Perception; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn / Q000523:psychology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual