Two studies examined the organization of color perception in 4-month-old human infants. In Study 1, infants looked at selected spectral stimuli repeatedly until their visual attention waned. The stimuli represented instances of basic adult hue categories - blue, green, yellow, and red. Following habituation, infants were shown a series of wavelengths which were the same as or different from the stimuli first seen. Analyses of infant attention during this dishabituation phase of the study indicated that infants categorize wavelengths by perceptual similarity; that is, they see hues in the spectrum much as adults do. In Study 2, a group of infants who looked at the alteration of two wavelengths from the same hue category habituated as did the group of infants who looked at the repitition of a single wavelength from that category, but a group of infants who looked at two wavelengths from different categories habituated at a slower rate. Data from the two studies suggest a high degree of organization of the color world prior to language acquisition.
Infant looking time was monitored during habituation to the repeated presentation of a wavelength stimulus selected from one basic adult hue category and after a change in stimulation. Recovery from habituation was greater to a wavelength selected from an adjacent hue category than to a wavelength from the same category even though these two stimuli were equally distant (in nanometers) from the habituation wavelength. Differential responding evidenced infants' categorical perception of hue; that is, infants see the physically continuous spectrum as divided into the hue categories of blue, green, yellow, and red. These results help to resolve the long-standing controversy surrounding the primacy of perception over language in the organization of hue.
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