Systems in development: motor skill acquisition facilitates three-dimensional object completion.
How do infants learn to perceive the backs of objects that they see only from a limited viewpoint? Infants' 3-dimensional object completion abilities emerge in conjunction with developing motor skills--independent sitting and visual-manual exploration. Infants at 4.5 to 7.5 months of age (n = 28) were habituated to a limited-view object and tested with volumetrically complete and incomplete (hollow) versions of the same object. Parents reported infants' sitting experience, and infants' visual-manual exploration of objects was observed in a structured play session. Infants' self-sitting experience and visual-manual exploratory skills predicted looking at the novel, incomplete object on the habituation task. Further analyses revealed that self-sitting facilitated infants' visual inspection of objects while they manipulated them. The results are framed within a developmental systems approach, wherein infants' sitting skill, multimodal object exploration, and object knowledge are linked in developmental time.
Soska
Kasey C
KC
Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, Room 458, New York, NY 10003, USA. kasey.soska@nyu.edu
Adolph
Karen E
KE
Johnson
Scott P
SP
D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time; D013223:Statistics as Topic