The contrast between holistic and differentiated perception of multidimensional stimuli is reconceptualized. Hypotheses about the experiential status of dimensions within holistic perception were tested as explanations of children's general perceptual mode and of adults' integral mode. Three levels of dimensional status are described. (Author/RD)

The current research investigates infants' perception of a novel object from a category that is familiar to young infants: key rings. We ask whether experiences obtained outside the lab would allow young infants to parse the visible portions of a partly occluded key ring display into one single unit, presumably as a result of having categorized it…