Three-dimensional (3D) object completion, the ability to perceive the backs of objects seen from a single viewpoint, emerges at around 6 months of age. Yet, only relatively simple 3D objects have been used in assessing its development. This study examined infants' 3D object completion when presented with more complex stimuli. Infants…

Statistical learning--implicit learning of statistical regularities within sensory input--is a way of acquiring structure within continuous sensory environments. Statistics computation, initially shown to be involved in word segmentation, has been demonstrated to be a general mechanism that operates across domains, across time and space, and…

Mental rotation involves transforming a mental image of an object so as to accurately predict how the object would look if it were rotated in space. This study examined mental rotation in male and female 3-month-olds, using the stimuli and paradigm developed by Moore and Johnson (2008). Infants were habituated to a video of a three-dimensional…

From birth, infants detect associations between the locations of static visual objects and sounds they emit, but there is limited evidence regarding their sensitivity to the dynamic equivalent when a sound-emitting object moves. In 4 experiments involving thirty-six 2-month-olds, forty-eight 5-month-olds, and forty-eight 8-month-olds, we…

We know that early experience plays a crucial role in the development of face processing, but we know little about how infants learn to distinguish faces from different races, especially for non-Caucasian populations. Moreover, it is unknown whether differential processing of different race faces observed in typically studied monoracial infants…

The experiments reported here investigated the development of a fundamental component of cognition: to recognize and generalize abstract relations. Infants were presented with simple rule-governed patterned sequences of visual shapes (ABB, AAB, and ABA) that could be discriminated from differences in the position of the repeated element (late,…

Three-dimensional (3D) object completion was investigated by habituating 4- and 6-month-old infants (n = 24 total) with a computer-generated wedge stimulus that pivoted 15[degrees], providing only a limited view. Two displays, rotating 360[degrees], were then shown: a complete, solid volume and an incomplete, hollow form composed only of the sides…

Adults have little difficulty perceiving objects as complete despite occlusion, but newborn infants perceive moving partly occluded objects solely in terms of visible surfaces. The developmental mechanisms leading to perceptual completion have never been adequately explained. Here, the authors examine the potential contributions of oculomotor…

Three experiments investigated whether 4-month-olds would attend to and utilize the global configuration ("good form") of a partly occluded, moving object to perceive its unit and coherence behind the occluder. Results indicated that curvature per se provided information in support of completion, in addition to global configuration and…

Habituated 2-, 5-, and 8-month-olds to visual stimuli following statistically predictable pattern, then showed the familiar pattern alternating with novel sequence of identical stimuli. Found significantly greater interest in novel sequence at all ages. Results support likelihood of domain general statistical learning in infancy and imply that…

A recognition-based paradigm was used to investigate possibility that past research failed to sensitively assess infants' perception of the unity of misaligned edges in partial occlusion displays. Results suggested that habituation designs tapping recognition processes may be particularly efficacious in revealing infants' perceptual organization.…

A fundamental question of perceptual development concerns how infants come to perceive partly hidden objects as unified across a spatial gap imposed by an occluder. Much is known about the time course of development of perceptual completion during the first several months after birth, as well as some of the visual information that supports unity…

Examined perception of object unity in partial occlusion in 72 infants. Recorded how long subjects looked at a display of complete and incomplete rods. In test and control conditions, infants looked longer at broken rods than at complete rods, suggesting that infants' cognitive, visual, or attentional skills may be insufficient to support…