title: Perception of occlusion by young infants: Must the occlusion event be congruent with the occluder?
abstract: Four-month-old infants perceive continuity of an object's trajectory through occlusion, even when the occluder is illusory, and several cues are apparently needed for young infants to perceive a veridical occlusion event. In this paper we investigated the effects of dislocating the spatial relation between the occlusion events and the visible edges of the occluder. In two experiments testing 60 participants, we demonstrated that 4-month-olds do not perceive continuity of an object's trajectory across an occlusion if the deletion and accretion events are spatially displaced relative to the occluder edges (Experiment 1) or if deletion and accretion occur along a linear boundary that is incorrectly oriented relative to the occluder's edges (Experiment 2). Thus congruence of these cues is apparently important for perception of veridical occlusion. These results are discussed in relation to an account of the development of perception of occlusion and object persistence.
authors.affiliation: Lancaster University, United Kingdom. Electronic address: j.g.bremner@lancaster.ac.uk.
authors.forename: J Gavin
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Bremner
authors.affiliation: University of Exeter, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Alan M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Slater
authors.affiliation: Lancaster University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Uschi C
authors.initials: UC
authors.lastname: Mason
authors.affiliation: Lancaster University, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Jo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Spring
authors.affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles, United States.
authors.forename: Scott P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D003463:Cues; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time
keywords: Accretion; Deletion; Occlusion; Trajectory continuity