title: Saliency and context play a role in infants' texture segmentation.
abstract: We investigated whether young infants orient reliably towards more salient vs. less salient objects in a visual scene. Subjects were tested with stimuli presented on textured fields, one side showing a target stimulus (a 'more salient' or 'less salient' texture patch) and the other a background stimulus. Infants typically preferred the more salient, but not the less salient target. Their behaviour depended on the configuration of the background stimulus. In contrast, 3-4 year-old children always showed a preference for the target stimulus, regardless of the configuration of the background. We conclude that both saliency of a target stimulus and its context play a role in early texture segmentation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany. sireteanu@mpih-frankfurt.mpg.de
authors.forename: Ruxandra
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sireteanu
authors.forename: Irmgard
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Encke
authors.forename: Iris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bachert
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011601:Psychophysics