Infants were tested at 5, 8, and 13 months of age for numerosity perception. Subjects observed displayed figures on a screen moving at constant speed with irregular trajectories and occasional occlusions. Results demonstrated that discrimination of units, and not of characteristic patterns, underlies numerosity perception. (BC)

A preferential looking procedure was used to investigate 7-month-olds' perception of positive and negative affective facial expressions in which a single vocal expression was concordant or discordant with the videotaped facial expression. Results indicated that 7-month-olds discriminated among happy, interested, angry, and sad expressions.…

Previous research suggests that model competence does not emerge until relatively late in infancy (20-26 months). Development was systematically analyzed within 3 key areas--count noun learning, dual representation, and categorization--hypothesized to support the emergence of model competence in the second year. In an object-handling preferential…

A paradigm was designed to study how infants identify live faces. Eight- to 21-week-old infants were seated comfortably and were presented an adult female, dressed in a white laboratory coat and a white turtle neck sweater, until habituation ensued. The adult then left the room. One minute later either she or an identically garbed confederate…

Are abstract representations of number--representations that are independent of the particular type of entities that are enumerated--a product of human language or culture, or do they trace back to human infancy? To address this question, four experiments investigated whether human infants discriminate between sequences of actions (jumps of a…

Adults readily detect changes in face patterns brought about by the inversion of eyes and mouth when the faces are viewed upright but not when they are viewed upside down. Research suggests that this illusion (the Thatcher illusion) is caused by the interfering effects of face inversion on the processing of second-order relational information…

The perceived spatiotemporal continuity of objects depends on the way they appear and disappear as they move in the spatial layout. This study investigated whether infants' predictive tracking of a briefly occluded object is sensitive to the manner by which the object disappears and reappears. Five-, 7-, and 9-month-old infants were shown a ball…

In this study, we investigated relations between infants' understanding of intentional actions and measures of social responsiveness during a transitional period, 9- to 11-months. Infants (N = 52) were tested in visual habituation paradigms tapping their understanding of the relation between a person and the object of her attention. Measures of…

Textons are elongated blobs of specific color, angular orientation, ends of lines, and crossings of line segments that are proposed to be the perceptual building blocks of the visual system. A study was conducted to explore the relative memorability of different types and arrangements of textons, exploring the time course for the discrimination…

Reviews examples from the recent psychological literature relating to object orientation and constancy. The conclusion is reached that the attempt to separate the constancy and discrimination questions in an experimental design employing only a single dependent variable fails practically and theoretically. A theoretically more acceptable…

This study was designed to test two alternate hypotheses regarding the meaning of increased lateral head movements in infants during experiments in which the mothers' voices were displaced from their faces. One interpretation is that the lateral looking responses of the infants are attributable to maturational effects on the infants' physiological…

Evaluates models of infant visual preferences with predictions based on the physical attributes of visual patterns using pairs of schematic faces and abstract patterns identical except for contrast reversals. Results suggest that a fundamental change in the determinants of visual preference occurs postnatally between 6 and 12 weeks. (Author/RWB)

Two variants of the habituation paradigm were used to investigate fine orientation discrimination and shape constancy in 34 young infants. Results demonstrate that conditions determine whether young infants show sensitivity to relatively fine variations in pattern orientation or give evidence of shape constancy with the same patterns. (HOD)

Four experiments assessed converging aspects of four-month-old infants' perceptions of visual patterns. Results together corroborate and extend previous findings that vertical symmetry has a special status in early perceptual development and that infants can perceive pattern wholes. (Author/AS)

Three experiments are described which relate to models of infant visual preferences and to the ways in which preferences can be modified or created by habituation. Results suggest that the Banks and Salapatek's contrast sensitivity model can be a powerful predictor of preferential looking in newborns and that preferences based on experience can be…