The role of symmetry in infant form discrimination.

This study examined whether infants can discriminate form on the basis of symmetrical organization when other stimulus factors are equated. 48 4-month-olds were tested in a habituation-dishabituation discrimination paradigm using vertically symmetrical, horizontally symmetrical, and asymmetrical forms. Infants discriminated vertically symmetrical forms from asymmetrical and from horizontally symmetrical ones, but they did not discriminate horizontally symmetrical forms from asymmetrical ones, nor did they discriminate asymmetrical forms from one another. This pattern of results suggests that the global organization embodied in vertical symmetry promotes perceptual discrimination. 12 additional 4-month-olds were habituated and tested with 2 vertical patterns. Their failure to demonstrate a reliable pattern of dishabituation suggests that babies respond to goodness of organization rather than to details unique to particular symmetrical patterns.

[1]  P. Wolff.  Mirror-image confusability in adults. , 1971, Journal of experimental psychology.

[2]  E. K. Bond,et al.  Perception of form by the human infant. , 1972, Psychological bulletin.

[3]  C. Gross,et al.  Perception of symmetry in infancy. , 1981 .

[4]  E. Gibson.  Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development , 1969 .

[5]  F. D. Horowitz.  Visual attention, auditory stimulation, and language discrimination in young infants. IX. Disscusion and conclusions. , 1974, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[6]  P. Salapatek.  Chapter 3 – Pattern Perception in Early Infancy1 , 1975 .

[7]  P. L. Harris.  Infant perception: From sensation to cognition L.B. Cohen & P. Salapatek. Academic Press, New York (1975). Vol. 1, 438 pp., £11.25 and Vol. 2, 256 pp., £8.75 , 1976, Neuroscience.

[8]  W. R. Garner,et al.  Goodness of pattern and pattern uncertainty. , 1963 .

[9]  S. Boswell.  Young children's processing of asymmetrical and symmetrical patterns. , 1976, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[10]  R H Day,et al.  Visual shape perception in early infancy. , 1979, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[11]  I. Paraskevopoulos.  Symmetry, recall, and preference in relation to chronological age. , 1968, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

[12]  I. Rock,et al.  An experimental analysis of visual symmetry , 1963 .

[13]  Developmental Changes in the Infant's Attention to Pattern Detail , 1976, Perceptual and motor skills.

[14]  Infants' visual attention to pattern arrangement and orientation. , 1975, Child development.

[15]  J. Fagan.  An Attention Model of Infant Recognition. , 1977 .

[16]  R Held,et al.  Orientational anisotropy in infant vision , 1975, Science.

[17]  M. Bornstein,et al.  Visual behavior of the young human infant: relationships between chromatic and spatial perception and the activity of underlying brain mechanisms. , 1978, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[18]  F. Attneave.  Symmetry, information, and memory for patterns. , 1955, The American journal of psychology.

[19]  P M FITTS,et al.  Some relations between stimulus patterns and performance in a continuous dual-pursuit task. , 1952, Journal of experimental psychology.

[20]  J. Deręgowski.  Symmetry, Gestalt and Information Theory , 1971, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[21]  J. Osofsky.  Handbook of infant development , 1979 .

[22]  O. Reiser,et al.  Principles Of Gestalt Psychology , 1936 .

[23]  Discrimination of figure orientation: effects of relative position. , 1967, Journal of comparative and physiological psychology.

[24]  Bela Julesz,et al.  Short-term memory for symmetry , 1976, Vision Research.

[25]  Vicky G Bruce,et al.  Violations of Symmetry and Repetition in Visual Patterns , 1975 .

[26]  P. Mussen,et al.  Carmichael's Manual of Child Psychology , 1972 .

[27]  Ernst Mach,et al.  The Analysis of Sensations. , 1916 .

[28]  S. Palmer,et al.  Orientation and symmetry: effects of multiple, rotational, and near symmetries. , 1978, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

[29]  Charles G. Gross,et al.  Perceptual similarity of mirror images in infancy , 1978, Cognition.

[30]  B. Julesz.  Foundations of Cyclopean Perception , 1971 .