TY - JOUR

T1 - Young infants' perception of unity and form in occlusion displays.

AU - Bremner, J. G.

AU - Johnson, S. P.

AU - Mason, U. C.

AU - Slater, A.

N1 - Bremner was senior author. Research resulting from international collaboration between Johnson (Cornell), Bremner, and Slater (Exeter), funded by ESRC grant R00237093 and based at Lancaster. Johnson initially co-investigator, later international collaborator. RAE_import_type : Journal article RAE_uoa_type : Psychology

PY - 2002/3

Y1 - 2002/3

N2 - Young infants have been reported to perceive the unity of a center-occluded object when the visible ends of the object are aligned and undergo common motion but not when the edges of the object are misaligned (Johnson & Aslin, 1996). Using a recognition-based paradigm, the authors investigated the possibility that past research failed to provide sufficiently sensitive assessments of infants' perception of the unity of misaligned edges in partial occlusion displays. Positive evidence was obtained in 4-month-olds for veridical perception of the motion and location of a hidden region but not its orientation, whereas 7-month-olds, in contrast to the younger infants, appeared to respond to the orientation of the hidden region. Overall, the results suggest that habituation designs tapping recognition processes may be particularly efficacious in revealing infants' perceptual organization. In addition, the findings provide corroborative evidence for the importance of both motion and orientation in young infants' object segregation and for the difficulty in achieving percepts of the global form of a partly occluded object.

AB - Young infants have been reported to perceive the unity of a center-occluded object when the visible ends of the object are aligned and undergo common motion but not when the edges of the object are misaligned (Johnson & Aslin, 1996). Using a recognition-based paradigm, the authors investigated the possibility that past research failed to provide sufficiently sensitive assessments of infants' perception of the unity of misaligned edges in partial occlusion displays. Positive evidence was obtained in 4-month-olds for veridical perception of the motion and location of a hidden region but not its orientation, whereas 7-month-olds, in contrast to the younger infants, appeared to respond to the orientation of the hidden region. Overall, the results suggest that habituation designs tapping recognition processes may be particularly efficacious in revealing infants' perceptual organization. In addition, the findings provide corroborative evidence for the importance of both motion and orientation in young infants' object segregation and for the difficulty in achieving percepts of the global form of a partly occluded object.

KW - object perception

KW - object unity

KW - infant visual perception

KW - habituation

U2 - 10.1006/jecp.2002.2657

DO - 10.1006/jecp.2002.2657

M3 - Journal article

VL - 81

SP - 358

EP - 374

JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

SN - 0022-0965

IS - 3

ER -