This study investigated children's perceptual ability to process second-order facial relations. In total, 78 children in three age groups (7, 9, and 11 years) and 28 adults were asked to say whether the eyes were the same distance apart in two side-by-side faces. The two faces were similar on all points except the space between the eyes, which was…

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.)

An experiment with monochromatic lights is discussed in terms of the selective effects of wavelength on looking time and pleasantness, comparisons of infant and adult data, and differentiation of the selective effects of color category centers and color category boundaries. (JMB)

Two experiments were conducted to demonstrate that human infants 3 months of age perceive color in a normal, trichromatic manner. Results from these studies of the neutral zone and hue discrimination evidence trichromatic vision in infancy and are discussed in the context of their clinical, social, and intellectual implications. (Author/SB)

Although it is acknowledged that adults integrate features into a representation of the whole face, there is still some disagreement about the onset and developmental course of holistic face processing. We tested adults and children from 4 to 6 years of age with the same paradigm measuring holistic face processing through an adaptation of the…

The analysis of I-scale preference orders of 71 infants (2 to 9 months old) to four face-like stimuli suggested a common J-scale stimulus ordering for each of four age groups. Changes in I-scale frequencies were used as a measure of age-related changes in preference orders. (MS)

Examined newborns' visual detection of peripheral and central stimuli. (BD)

In order to study infants' sensitivity to binocular information for depth, 11 infants, 20 to 26 weeks of age, were presented with real and stereoscopically projected virtual objects at three distances, and the infants' reaching behavior was videotaped. (Author/SB)

Four experiments utilizing the familiarization-novelty preference procedure examined whether 3- and 4-month-olds could form categorical representations for cats versus dogs from the perceptual information available in silhouettes. Findings indicated that general shape or external contour information centered about the head was sufficient for…

Human infants' discrimination of changes in internal and external elements of compound visual patterns was investigated in four experiments employing a familiarization-novelty paradigm in which visual reinforcing patterns were presented contingent upon rate of high-amplitude nonnutritive sucking. (Author/JH)

The ability of 3-month-old infants to discriminate novel components of a pre-familiarized stimulus was assessed using an operant paradigm. Subjects were 20 infants; adult judgments were taken from 15 college students. (Author/JH)

Compared the recognition, perceptual saliency, and naming of color to that of other perceptual object attributes in 2- to 5-year-olds as a function of language age. Found that although color was perceptually salient relative to other visual attributes, no selective impairment to color cognition was found relative to motion, form, and size.…

Reports on four experiments on pattern perception in four-month-old infants. The first experiment examined preference for patterns varying in structure; the second examined encoding patterns from different subset sizes; and the last two experiments examined changes in the size, position, and orientation of the habituation pattern. (HOD)

Researched the possibility that four- to six-year-old children are competent and systematic classifiers, at least making classifications by overall similarity. In three experiments, young children classified various sets of multidimensional stimuli that could be organized into catagories by overall similarity or by diminsional attributes. Children…

Examined which of the attentional operations underlying exogenous orienting (disengaging, shifting, and/or engaging) improves with age in children from 6 to 14 years old. Found that disengaging attention alone distinguished between younger and older children's performance, regardless of whether attention alone or attention and associated sensory…