Object Segregation in Infancy

Six experiments were conducted in order to investigate the development of object segregation in infancy. Infants aged 4 and 8 months were presented with display involving partly occluded and adjacent objects, and the experiments examined which sources of information infants could use to parse the displays. The results indicated that at four months of age, infants are able to make use of at least four sources of knowledge when locating object boundaries: knowledge about the spatial relations between objects, knowledge about the appearance of objects' surfaces, general knowledge about objects, and knowledge gained through previous experiences with objects. Further results indicated that when information about the spatial relations between the surfaces and the appearance of the surfaces yielded conflicting interpretations as to whether the surfaces belonged to the same unit or to different units, 4-month-old infants had an indeterminate percept of the surfaces. In contrast, 8-month-old infants had an unambiguous perception of the scene, driven by the appearance of the surfaces. Final results indicated that, just as 8-month-old infants appear to rank information about appearance above information about the spatial relations between the surfaces, they also seem to attach more importance to adjacent objects' physical properties than to their appearance.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Needham, Amy E.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Baillargeon, R.,

• Psychology, Developmental

Identifier

(UMI)AAI9305632

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/72116