Object recognition and attention to object components by preschool children and 4-month-old infants

J Exp Child Psychol. 2003 Oct;86(2):108-23. doi: 10.1016/s0022-0965(03)00108-5.

Abstract

The present research investigated attention to and recognition of components in compound stimuli by infants and preschool children. A preliminary experiment was conducted with adults to develop stimulus components and to validate their structure. An experiment using an oddity task with preschoolers (N = 32) and one using the familiarization/novelty-preference task with infants (N = 64) demonstrated successful discrimination among the stimulus components on the basis of edge property information. Separate experiments using a matching task with preschoolers (N = 32) and an habituation task with infants (N = 32) demonstrated that preschoolers and infants are also able to direct attention to and recognize components of compound stimuli. Implications for structural-description theories of object recognition are discussed.

MeSH terms

  • Child, Preschool
  • Female
  • Habituation, Psychophysiologic
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Male
  • Random Allocation
  • Recognition, Psychology*