Decomposing infants’ object representations: A dual-route processing account

The capacity for infants to form mental representations of hidden or occluded objects can be decomposed into two tasks: one process that identifies salient objects and a second complementary process that identifies salient locations. This functional decomposition is supported by the distinction between dorsal and ventral extrastriate visual processing in the primate visual system. This approach is illustrated by presenting an eye-movement model that incorporates both dorsal and ventral processing streams and by using the model to simulate infants’ reactions to possible and impossible events from an infant looking-time study (R. Baillargeon, “Representing the existence and the location of hidden objects: object permanence in 6- and 8-month-old infants”, Cognition, 23, pp. 21–41, 1986.). As expected, the model highlights how the dorsal system is sensitive to the location of a key feature in these events (i.e. the location of an obstacle), whereas the ventral system responds equivalently to the possible and impossible events. These results are used to help explain infants’ reactions in looking-time studies.

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