TY - JOUR

T1 - Perception of Size and Mass Relationships of Moving and Stationary Object in Collision Events in 10-to-11-Month-Old Infants

AU - Sanal-Hayes, Nilihan E M

AU - Hayes, Lawrence D

AU - Walker, Peter

AU - Mair, Jacqueline L

AU - Bremner, James Gavin

PY - 2023/1/6

Y1 - 2023/1/6

N2 - Around 5.5-6.5 months of age, infants first attend to object size and perceive its mass cues in simple collision events. Infants attend to the size of the moving object and expect a greater displacement following a collision with a large object and stationary object, and lesser displacement following a collision with a small object and stationary object. It has been proposed that infants of 6-to-7 months of age can differentiate between sizes of moving objects but do not perceive the size and mass relationships in simple collision events. The present two investigations aimed to investigate whether infants 10-to-11 months of age (N = 16) could perceive this relationship (experiment 1) and the reverse of this relationship (experiment 2) utilising the looking time paradigm. The reverse of this relationship entailed the circumstances in which the moving object size was kept constant, but the stationary object size varied (small or large). Results from these experiments revealed that infants did not differ in their looking times for size congruent and size incongruent distances in both conditions. Infants did not look longer at the incongruent test events that violated expectation. For that reason, we conclude infants of 10-to-11 months of age were unable to perceive size and mass associations in collision events in either direction (moving object or stationary object size).

AB - Around 5.5-6.5 months of age, infants first attend to object size and perceive its mass cues in simple collision events. Infants attend to the size of the moving object and expect a greater displacement following a collision with a large object and stationary object, and lesser displacement following a collision with a small object and stationary object. It has been proposed that infants of 6-to-7 months of age can differentiate between sizes of moving objects but do not perceive the size and mass relationships in simple collision events. The present two investigations aimed to investigate whether infants 10-to-11 months of age (N = 16) could perceive this relationship (experiment 1) and the reverse of this relationship (experiment 2) utilising the looking time paradigm. The reverse of this relationship entailed the circumstances in which the moving object size was kept constant, but the stationary object size varied (small or large). Results from these experiments revealed that infants did not differ in their looking times for size congruent and size incongruent distances in both conditions. Infants did not look longer at the incongruent test events that violated expectation. For that reason, we conclude infants of 10-to-11 months of age were unable to perceive size and mass associations in collision events in either direction (moving object or stationary object size).

KW - mass cues

KW - causal events

KW - collision events

KW - object size of moving object

KW - physical knowledge

KW - violation of expectation

KW - looking time

KW - object size of stationary object

U2 - 10.3390/bs13010056

DO - 10.3390/bs13010056

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36661628

VL - 13

JO - Behavioral Sciences

JF - Behavioral Sciences

SN - 2076-328X

IS - 1

M1 - 56

ER -