Perceptual reference points for form and orientation in young infants: Anchors or magnets?

Quinn, Paul C.

doi:10.3758/bf03212160

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(97 reference statements)

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“…This pattern of results is consistent with previous research with young infants showing that only well-formed stimuli enable perceptual anchoring and subsequent discrimination of a change [23]. This result demonstrates that it is the scale-invariance of the sounds that enables the subjects to group them in a single category.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Category-Specific Processing of Scale-Invariant Sounds in Infancy

2014

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Increasing evidence suggests that the natural world has a special status for our sensory and cognitive functioning. The mammalian sensory system is hypothesized to have evolved to encode natural signals in an efficient manner. Exposure to natural stimuli, but not to artificial ones, improves learning and cognitive function. Scale-invariance, the property of exhibiting the same statistical structure at different spatial or temporal scales, is common to naturally occurring sounds. We recently developed a 3-parameter model to capture the essential characteristics of water sounds, and from this generated both scale-invariant and variable-scale sounds. In a previous study, we found that adults perceived a wide range of the artificial scale-invariant, but not the variable-scale, sounds as instances of natural sounds. Here, we explored the ontogenetic origins of these effects by investigating how young infants perceive and categorize scale-invariant acoustic stimuli. Even though they have several months of experience with natural water sounds, infants aged 5 months did not show a preference, in the first experiment, for the instances of the scale-invariant sounds rated as typical water-like sounds by adults over non-prototypical, but still scale-invariant instances. Scale-invariance might thus be a more relevant factor for the perception of natural signals than simple familiarity. In a second experiment, we thus directly compared infants' perception of scale-invariant and variable-scale sounds. When habituated to scale-invariant sounds, infants looked significantly longer to a change in sound category from scale-invariant to variable-scale sounds, whereas infants habituated to variable-scale sounds showed no such difference. These results suggest that infants were able to form a perceptual category of the scale-invariant, but not variable-scale sounds. These findings advance the efficient coding hypothesis, and suggest that the advantage for perceiving and learning about the natural world is evident from the first months of life.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Category-Specific Processing of Scale-Invariant Sounds in Infancy

2014

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“…In our view, this pattern of results is consistent with the idea that prototypes serve as cognitive reference points that function as magnets (Rosch, 1975). Magnet effects correspond to a lower discriminability and a presumed shrinkage of psychological space around reference points (Quinn, 2000). These effects have been evidenced in a number of studies that revealed asymmetries in similarity judgments: People tend to consider nonprototypic stimuli as more similar or closer to prototypic stimuli than the opposite (Kuhl, 1991; Rosch, 1975; Tversky, 1977).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Memory Shifts Toward More Typical Category Exemplars: Accentuation Effects in the Recollection of Ethnically Ambiguous Faces.

Corneille¹,

Huart²,

Becquart³

et al. 2004

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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In 4 studies, the authors examined the impact of categorization on the recollection of ethnically ambiguous faces. Participants were presented with faces lying at various locations on mixed-race continua (i.e., Caucasian-North African and Caucasian-Asian faces were used as source images in a morphing program). In all studies, the prevalence of exclusive ethnic features in a face distorted participants' recollections of the face toward faces more typical of the category. Specifically, the recollection of 30% North African (or 30% Asian) faces shifted toward Caucasian source faces, whereas the recollection of 70% North African (or 70% Asian) faces shifted toward North African (Asian) source faces. Memory distortions did not emerge for extremely ambiguous (50%) faces and proved larger on mixed-race than same-race continua (Studies 3 and 4). Memory distortions also emerged with high levels of confidence. The authors elaborate on the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.Have you ever noticed, after meeting a person you have not seen for a period of time, that this person looked different than you remembered? Last year, an Italian colleague of ours returned from a 2-week holiday back in his homeland. As he entered the lab and greeted us, we commented on our feeling that his hair and eyes were actually lighter than we remembered. The sun may have lightened his hair during his holidays, but what explanation could hold for his eyes? Was our recollection of his face simply inaccurate? We speculated that within only 2 weeks, our memory of our colleague's face had shifted toward a face holding more typical characteristics of his national group. This event nicely illustrates the effect investigated here. Indeed, we hypothesized that face memory would be distorted toward more typical face exemplars. Although this issue could be addressed in the context of various categories (e.g., age, gender), we focused on ethnic categories in the present research. We hypothesized that the spontaneous categorization of ethnically ambiguous faces would result in memory distortions of these faces toward more typical face exemplars. The influence of social information externally attached to the faces was also considered.

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“…Such a starting point might then be reinforced in the developmental history of the child. For example, a categorical boundary dividing vertical and oblique might remain in the child's representational system as an adaptive perceptual reference point if it can be used to determine whether a stimulus will stay upright or fall down (Quinn 2000;Rosch 1975). As Wolfe et al (1992) have suggested about the categorical perception of orientation information``... in the real world, a few broad categories are adequate to determine if a rock is placed in a stable position or if a picture is hung correctly on the wall'' (page 48).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual Perception of Orientation is Categorical near Vertical and Continuous near Horizontal

Quinn

2004

Perception

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Four experiments were conducted to examine whether visual-orientation information is perceived categorically. In experiments 1 and 3, adult participants sorted oriented line stimuli into broad oblique and narrow vertical or horizontal categories. Experiments 2 and 4 showed that categorical discrimination of orientation occurred only near the vertical-oblique boundary. The data indicate that there is categorical perception near vertical and more continuous perception near horizontal. The results are relevant to the debate over whether categorical perception is derived from perceptual structure, verbal coding, or within-task learning. In addition, the asymmetrical perception of orientation around vertical and horizontal is consistent with the possibility that there may be differences in the functional significance of orientation near the two main axes.

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Perceptual reference points for form and orientation in young infants: Anchors or magnets?

Cited by 12 publications

References 53 publications

Category-Specific Processing of Scale-Invariant Sounds in Infancy

Category-Specific Processing of Scale-Invariant Sounds in Infancy

When Memory Shifts Toward More Typical Category Exemplars: Accentuation Effects in the Recollection of Ethnically Ambiguous Faces.

Visual Perception of Orientation is Categorical near Vertical and Continuous near Horizontal

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