The size of the effective visual field during the first weeks of life is found to depend on two factors: It increases with age, but contracts in the face of competition from ongoing activity such as fixation of a central stimulus or nonnutritive sucking. (Author/SB)

Visual pattern preferences were established for 96 9- and 13-week-old infants using stimuli varying in contour density presented either at a low, moderate, or high luminance level. Age differences in the maximally preferred patterns across stimuli and luminance levels indicated that luminance interacts with contour density in determining stimulus…

Assessed infants' detection of relative motion between a target and its surrounding static reference features in two experiments. Found evidence for 8- and 20-week-olds' detection of a moving target, and a target and surrounding reference features moving in opposite directions. Twenty-week-olds detected a target that moved faster and in the same…

This experiment examined developmental changes in the ability of infants to learn conceptual categories regarding the human face. A total of 108 infants, aged 18, 24, and 30 weeks, were habituated to (1) the same face in the same orientation, (2) the same face in differing orientations, or (3) different faces in different orientations. All…

The eye movements of subjects, ages 4 through 62, were recorded by a corneal reflection technique during familiarization with and recognition of random patterns of luminous dots. Findings were consistent with the views of both Soviet researchers and Piaget, that overt, perceptual activity diminishes with increasing age. (Author/SDH)

Examined the visual scanning patterns of infants ages 6, 10, and 13 weeks who viewed static geometric figures. Measures of fixation dwell-times, saccade lengths, and the choices and sequences of saccadic targets revealed that, although younger infants demonstrated salience-guided scanning behavior, older infants increasingly utilized volitional…

Infants' visual fixations were monitored while they viewed predictable and unpredictable sequences of stimuli. Analyses of anticipatory fixations indicated that by two months of age, infants form expectations for the reappearance of visual stimuli positioned opposite to each other. By three months, infants rapidly form expectations for asymmetric…

Pioneering research has shown that infants are capable of perceptual discrimination and has provided some indication of the nature of the discrimination; that is, what stimuli are differentiable. Studies have demonstrated that significant effects exist, in stimulus-pair comparisons, for age of infant, speed of movement of stimulus during…

One question prompting the present research concerned the relation between performance under tachistoscopic'' conditions where exposure durations are too brief to permit active overt visual search, and performance when overt search is possible. (Author)

Eye movements of 12-week-old infants were recorded in a visual encoding experiment. Results showed that infants who encoded more slowly scanned less extensively over the stimulus and engaged in prolonged fixation. An experiment with two-week olds showed significant age differences in the manner of visual scanning. (BC)

Visual fixations were recorded in newborn, 4-, and 8-week-old human infants as they scanned displays that varied in contour length, size, number, and a new metric, CVAL (based on Contour Variability, Amount and Location). One of the findings was that both contour length and CVAL separately accounted for approximatel1 95 of looking-duration…

Fixation time, smiling, vocalization, and fret/cry were recorded to obtain a complete picture of infants' responses to facial stimuli over the first year of life. Four stimuli were presented to 120 infants. Results of fixation data indicate that (1) there is a marked decrease in fixation toward facial stimuli within the first year, (2) at all ages…