Developing Visual Closure in Infancy

Visual closure is the ability to complete a picture from partial information. In children it is a requisite in many skills such as fluent reading, and is also used in many tests of colour vision. Here we present a test of visual closure in infants across two age groups, 1;4 and 1;7, both to test their abilities in visual closure, but also as a prototype for a colour vision test for younger infants. The results of the study show evidence of development in visual closure abilities across those two ages, suggesting that visual closure is a perceptual ability that continues to develop in the second year of life. The results of this study are discussed in terms of perceptual development in infants and toddlers, and have consequences for both medical and scientific understanding of visual closure in children.