Perceptual similarity of mirror images in infancy

Bornstein, Marc H.; Gross, Charles G.; Wolf, Joan Z.

doi:10.1016/0010-0277(78)90017-3

Cited by 107 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Moreover, mirror invariance was also demonstrated in infants (Bornstein et al, 1978) and may therefore constitute a default invariance of the visual system in humans. As a consequence, it is not surprising that young readers confuse left and right orientation of letters.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

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Breaking the symmetry: Mirror discrimination for single letters but not for pictures in the Visual Word Form Area

et al. 2011

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Humans and primates can quickly recognize mirror images of previously exposed pictures. This spontaneous mirror invariance, though advantageous for visual recognition, makes it difficult to distinguish the orientation of letters (e.g. to differentiate a "b" from a "d"), and may result in classical mirror reading and writing errors in preschoolers. Mirror invariance must therefore be overcome during reading acquisition. The Visual Word Form Area (VWFA), a region in the ventral stream that develops with reading expertise, was previously shown to discriminate words from their mirror images in literate adults. Here we investigate whether this region underlies mirror-image discrimination at the most elementary level of the orthographic code, the single-letter level. Using an fMRI priming paradigm, we demonstrate that the VWFA distinguishes the left-right orientation of single letters in skilled readers, and yet exhibits mirror invariance for simple pictures of matched complexity. These results clarify how letter shapes, after reading acquisition, escape the process of mirror invariance which is a basic property of the ventral visual shape recognition pathway.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…In humans this mirror-invariance mechanism has been demonstrated in adults (Tarr and Pinker, 1989;Biederman and Cooper, 1991) and is known to be already present in infants (Bornstein et al, 1978). Mirror-invariance poses a challenging problem at the beginning of reading and writing acquisition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Breaking the symmetry: Mirror discrimination for single letters but not for pictures in the Visual Word Form Area

et al. 2011

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“…leftright) orientation. This ability is well investigated in monkeys (Logothetis, Pauls, & Poggio, 1995;Noble, 1966;Rollenhagen & Olson, 2000), and humans (Biederman & Cooper, 1991;Bornstein, Gross, & Wolf, 1978;Stankiewicz, Hummel, & Cooper, 1998). In order to learn to read, however, mirror invariance must be suppressed, in particular in the alphabetic phase (cf.…”

Section: Mirror Invariancementioning

confidence: 99%

Distinguishing cause from effect – many deficits associated with developmental dyslexia may be a consequence of reduced and suboptimal reading experience

Huettig

Lachmann

Reis

et al. 2017

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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(2018) Distinguishing cause from effect -many deficits associated with developmental dyslexia may be a consequence of reduced and suboptimal reading experience, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33:3, 333-350, DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2017 The cause of developmental dyslexia is still unknown despite decades of intense research. Many causal explanations have been proposed, based on the range of impairments displayed by affected individuals. Here we draw attention to the fact that many of these impairments are also shown by illiterate individuals who have not received any or very little reading instruction. We suggest that this fact may not be coincidental and that the performance differences of both illiterates and individuals with dyslexia compared to literate controls are, to a substantial extent, secondary consequences of either reduced or suboptimal reading experience or a combination of both. The search for the primary causes of reading impairments will make progress if the consequences of quantitative and qualitative differences in reading experience are better taken into account and not mistaken for the causes of reading disorders. We close by providing four recommendations for future research.ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…Previous work has considered mirror-image-discrimination mainly as an existing skill, the presence (or absence) of which being indicative either of the status of cognitive development (Rudel & Teuber, 1963;Bornstein, Gross & Wolf, 1978), or of a particular perceptual deficit within neurological patient populations (Turnbull & McCarthy, 1996;Davidoff & Warrington, 2001, Priftis et al 2003). The present study transcends this perspective by focussing on the learning of mirrorimage discrimination skills in normal adult observers, and on the way in which such skills are embedded into the process of pattern categorization -the cognitive backbone of visual perception (Bruner, 1957;Rosch, 1978).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As already noted by Ernst Mach (1922), children confuse characters and syllables such as p-q and no-on during the acquisition of reading and writing. Although this welldocumented difficulty in infancy (see Davidson 1935;Rudel & Teuber, 1963;Bornstein, Gross & Wolf, 1978) is mostly overcome during cognitive development, mirror images continue to be perceived as particularly similar in adulthood. A classical tool to demonstrate and to exploit this phenomenon has been Shepard & Metzler's (1971) mental rotation paradigm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%