Learning by selection: Visual search and object perception in young infants.

Abstract

The authors examined how visual selection mechanisms may relate to developing cognitive functions in infancy. Twenty-two 3-month-old infants were tested in 2 tasks on the same day: perceptual completion and visual search. In the perceptual completion task, infants were habituated to a partly occluded moving rod and subsequently presented with unoccluded broken and complete rod test stimuli. In the visual search task, infants viewed displays in which single targets of varying levels of salience were cast among homogeneous static vertical distractors. Infants whose posthabituation preference indicated unity perception in the completion task provided evidence of a functional visual selective attention mechanism in the search task. The authors discuss the implications of the efficiency of attentional mechanisms for information processing and learning.

Shape, Action, Symbolic Play, and Words: Overlapping Loops of Cause and Consequence in Developmental Process

“…There are many well-documented demonstrations of how action organizes perceptual development in other domains (e.g. Amso & Johnson, 2006;Bushnell & Bourdreau, 1993;Gibson, 1969;Needham, Barrett, & Peterman, 2002;Ruff & Rothbart, 1996). Two recent developmental studies in our laboratory suggest that this may also be the case in children's representation of the major axes of an object.…”

Visual experience enhances infants' use of task-relevant information in an action task.

“…Past research has shown that motor experience affects the development of distance perception, intentional reaching, and the ability to search for a hidden object (e.g., Campos et al, 2000;Kellman & Arterberry, 1998;Smith, Thelen, Titzer, & McLin, 1999;Thelen et al, 1993). More recently, investigators have reported effects of experience at home or in the laboratory on infants' perception and action (e.g., Amso & Johnson, 2006;Baillargeon, Fisher, & DeJong, 2000;Needham, 2000;Needham, Barrett, & Peterman, 2002;Sommerville, Woodward, & Needham, 2005;Wang & Baillargeon, 2005, in press;Wilcox & Chapa, 2004). First, infants' experience acting upon objects enhances their ability to segregate objects (Needham, 2000) and to interpret goal-directed behavior in looking-time tasks (Sommerville et al, 2005); it also elevates infants' level of object exploration (Needham et al, 2002).…”

Priming 4.5-month-old infants to use height information by enhancing retrieval.

“…Being able to sit up and to crawl increases the opportunities for infants to explore objects and thus enhances their ability to process and reason about objects (e.g., Soska, Adolph, & Johnson, 2010). In addition to naturally occurring experience, deliberate manipulation of experiences at home or in the laboratory enhances infants' perception of and performance in dynamic events (e.g., Amso & Johnson, 2006Barrett, Davis, & Needham, 2007Hauf, Elsner, & Aschersleben, 2004;Sommerville, Hildebrand, & Crane, 2008;Sommerville, Woodward, & Needham, 2005;Wang & Kohne, 2007;Wilcox, Woods, & Chapa, 2008).…”