A remarkable amount of perceptual development occurs in the first year after birth. In this article, we spotlight the case of color perception. We outline how within just 6 months, infants go from very limited detection of color as newborns to a more sophisticated perception of color that enables them to make sense of objects and the world around…

We respond to the commentary of Franklin, Wright, and Davies ("Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102", 239-245 [2009]) by returning to the simple contrast between nature and nurture. We find no evidence from the toddler data that makes us revise our ideas that color categories are learned and never innate. (Contains 1 figure.)

Investigates the sensitivity of children aged 6 to 10 to stylistic properties of line drawings. Subjects were asked to judge the similarity of 12 drawings which varied along the dimensions of clarity, expressiveness, and line thickness. In contrast to previous research, the youngest children had the ability to make multidimensional…

Infants were familiarized with plastic animals from one of two categories (land or sea) that were judged similar or variable by adults. Infants were then tested with novel animals from the same or a different category. Thirteen-month-olds in the similar familiarization condition dishabituated to novel animals of a different category and, to a…

Reviews the research literature on the abilities of infants to categorize visual information on dot patterns; schematic faces; hue; and orientation. (HOD)

Explored the notion that children's difficulty in reading is a sign of a general inability to selectively attend to parts of perceptual wholes. Children and adults classified triads of spoken syllables and visual objects. Classification of speech was related to reading and spelling ability, but not to classification of visual stimuli. (BC)