Abstract
A new grouping principle, uniform connectedness (UC), has been posited to be a basic organizer of visual pattern information, one that takes precedence over other, more classic grouping principles (Palmer & Rock, 1994), but its ontogenetic origins have not previously been investigated. We examined whether 3- to 4-month-olds and 6- to 7-month-olds utilize UC to organize static two-dimensional displays. Infants habituated to uniformly connected patterns exhibited a novelty preference for disconnected element patterns, whereas those without any habituation failed to exhibit a preference. The results indicate that infants are sensitive to UC as a cue for perceptual organization. Prior studies indicate that some Gestalt principles (e.g., common movement) are functional during the first half year of life, but that other principles (e.g., form similarity) are less readily available. The present finding showing that young infants are sensitive to UC points to the foundational nature of this cue and adds to an emerging body of evidence indicating that at least some of the mechanisms believed to produce perceptual organization in adults are already operational in the first months of life. nt]mis|This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS 0224240) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD042451).
References
Arterberry, M. E., Craton, L. G., &Yonas, A. (dy1993). Infants’ sensitivity to motion-carried information for depth and object properties. In C. Granrud (Ed.),Visual perception and cognition in infancy (pp. 215–234). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Behrmann, M., &Kimchi, R. (dy2003). What does visual agnosia tell us about perceptual organization and its relationship to object perception?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,29, 19–42.
Bhatt, R. S., &Bertin, E. (dy2001). Pictorial cues and three-dimensional information processing in early infancy.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,80, 315–332.
Biederman, I. (dy1987). Recognition-by-components: A theory of human image understanding.Psychological Review,94, 115–147.
Condry, K. F., Smith, W. C., &Spelke, E. S. (dy2001). Development of perceptual organization. In F. Lacerda, C. von Hofsten, & M. Heimann (Eds.),Emerging cognitive abilities in early infancy (pp. 1–28). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Craton, L. G. (dy1996). The development of perceptual completion abilities: Infants’ perception of stationary, partially occluded objects.Child Development,67, 890–904.
Farroni, T., Valenza, E., Simion, F., &Umiltà, C. (dy2000). Configural processing at birth: Evidence for perceptual organisation.Perception,29, 355–372.
Han, S., Humphreys, G. W., &Chen, L. (dy1999). Uniform connectedness and classical Gestalt principles of perceptual grouping.Perception & Psychophysics,61, 661–674.
Johnson, S. P. (dy2000). The development of visual surface perception: Insights into the ontogeny of knowledge. In C. Rovee-Collier, L. P. Lipsitt, & H. Hayne (Eds.),Progress in infancy research (Vol. 1, pp. 113–154). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kellman, P. J., &Spelke, E. S. (dy1983). Perception of partly occluded objects in infancy.Cognitive Psychology,15, 483–524.
Kestenbaum, R., Termine, N., &Spelke, E. S. (dy1987). Perception of objects and object boundaries by 3-month-old infants.British Journal of Developmental Psychology,5, 367–383.
Kimchi, R. (dy1998). Uniform connectedness and grouping in the perceptual organization of hierarchical patterns.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,24, 1105–1118.
Kimchi, R. (dy2000). The perceptual organization of visual objects: A microgenetic analysis.Vision Research,40, 1333–1347.
Kimchi, R. (dy2003a). Relative dominance of holistic and component properties in the perceptual organization of visual objects. In M. A. Peterson & G. Rhodes (Eds.),Perception of faces, objects, and scenes (pp. 235–268). New York: Oxford University Press.
Kimchi, R. (dy2003b). Visual perceptual organization: A microgenetic analysis. In R. Kimchi, M. Behrmann, & C. R. Olson (Eds.),Perceptual organization in vision: Behavioral & neural perspectives (pp. 117–153). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Köhler, W. (dy1929).Gestalt psychology. New York: Liveright.
Marr, D. (dy1982).Vision. San Francisco: Freeman.
Needham, A. (dy1998). Infants’ use of featural information in the segregation of stationary objects.Infant Behavior & Development,21, 47–76.
Needham, A., Baillargeon, R., &Kaufman, L. (dy1997). Object segregation in infancy. In C. Rovee-Collier & L. P. Lipsitt (Eds.),Advances in infancy research (Vol. 11, pp. 1–44). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Palmer, S. E. (dy1992). Common region: A new principle of perceptual grouping.Cognitive Psychology,24, 436–447.
Palmer, S. E. (dy1999).Vision science: Photons to phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Palmer, S. E. (dy2003). Perceptual organization and grouping. In R. Kimchi, M. Behrmann, & C. R. Olson (Eds.),Perceptual organization in vision: Behavioral and neural perspectives (pp. 3–43). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Palmer, S. [E.], &Rock, I. (dy1994). Rethinking perceptual organization: The role of uniform connectedness.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,1, 29–55.
Pascalis, O., de Haan, M., Nelson, C. A., &de Schonen, S. (dy1998). Long-term recognition memory for faces assessed by visual paired comparison in 3- and 6-month-old infants.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,24, 249–260.
Quinn, P. C., &Bhatt, R. S. (dy2005). Learning perceptual organization in infancy.Psychological Science,16, 511–515.
Quinn, P. C., Bhatt, R. S., Brush, D., Grimes, A., &Sharpnack, H. (2002). Development of form similarity as a Gestalt grouping principle in infancy.Psychological Science,13, 320–328.
Quinn, P. C., Brown, C. R., &Streppa, M. L. (dy1997). Perceptual organization of complex visual configurations by young infants.Infant Behavior & Development,20, 35–46.
Quinn, P. C., &Schyns, P. G. (dy2003). What goes up may come down: Perceptual process and knowledge access in the organization of complex visual patterns by young infants.Cognitive Science,27, 923–935.
Rock, I., &Palmer, S. [E.] (dy1990). The legacy of Gestalt psychology.Scientific American,263, 84–90.
Watson, S. E., &Kramer, A. F. (dy1999). Object-based visual selective attention and perceptual organization.Perception & Psychophysics,61, 31–49.
Wertheimer, M. (dy1958). Principles of perceptual organization. In D. C. Beardslee & M. Wertheimer (Eds.),Readings in perception (pp. 115–135). Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand. (Original work published 1923)
Yonas, A., &Arterberry, M. E. (dy1994). Infants perceive spatial structure specified by line junctions.Perception,23, 1427–1435.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hayden, A., Bhatt, R.S. & Quinn, P.C. Infants’ sensitivity to uniform connectedness as a cue for perceptual organization. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 13, 257–261 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193840
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193840