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Part representation is not only critical to object perception but also plays a key role in a number of basic visual cognition functions, such as figure-ground segregation, allocation of attention, and memory for shapes. Yet, virtually nothing is known about the development of part representation. If parts are fundamental components of object shape representation early in life, then the infant visual system should give priority to parts over other aspects of objects. We tested this hypothesis by examining whether part shapes are more salient than cavity shapes to infants. Five-month-olds were habituated to a stimulus that contained a part and a cavity. In a subsequent novelty preference test, 5-month-olds exhibited a preference for the cavity shape, indicating that part shapes were more salient than cavity shapes during habituation. The differential processing of part versus cavity contours in infancy is consistent with theory and empirical findings in the literature on adult figure-ground perception and indicates that basic aspects of part-based object processing are evident early in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four experiments investigated how readily infants achieve perceptual organization by lightness and form similarity. Infants were (a) familiarized with elements that could be organized into rows or columns on the basis of lightness or form similarity and tested with vertical versus horizontal bars depicting the familiar versus novel organization or (b) familiarized with bars and tested with elements. For lightness similarity, generalization occurred in both tasks; however, for form similarity, generalization occurred only in the elements → bars task. The findings indicate that lightness similarity is more readily deployed than form similarity and are discussed in the context of (a) whether the difference reflects speed of application or experience-based learning, (b) evidence from visual agnosic patients and the time course of application of the principles in healthy adults, and (c) development of dorsal and ventral visual processing streams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines effects of set size and novelty in visual pop-outs in six month old infants through perceptual-identification memory. Effect of set size and novelty in long-term retention; Assessment of retention in two individual measures; Discriminatory ratio of visual pop-out on parallel processing; Difference between adult and infants in implicit perceptual identification tasks.

Examines how perception affects delayed recognition, visual pop out, and memory reactivation (priming) at six months. Infants' discrimination of cues differing in spatial arrangement or number of primitive perceptual units or both; Exhibition of adultlike visual pop-out effects in a priming task; Performance at six and three months.

Examines whether the perception and retention of feature relations, thought to be critical for object recognition in adults, are evident early in infancy. Disruption of three-month-olds' 24-hour retention; Infants' exhibition of adultlike `illusory conjunctions'; Suggestion that the ability to answer fundamental questions of perception is evident in infancy.

Sex is a significant social category, and adults derive information about it from both faces and bodies. Research indicates that young infants process sex category information in faces. However, no prior study has examined whether infants derive sex categories from bodies and match faces and bodies in terms of sex. In the current study, 5-month-olds exhibited a preference between sex congruent (face and body of the same sex) versus sex-incongruent (face and body belonging to different genders) images. In contrast, 3.5-month-olds failed to exhibit a preference. Thus, 5-month-olds process sex information from bodies and match it to facial information. However, younger infants’ failure to match suggests that there is a developmental change between 3.5 and 5 months of age in the processing of sex categories. These results indicate that rapid developmental changes lead to fairly sophisticated social information processing quite early in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]