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Theoretical Issues in the Early Development of Visual Perception

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Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

The present chapter will provide a selective review of findings on the growth of visual pattern perception in infants ranging in age from birth to seven months. (More comprehensive reviews are readily available in Cohen and Salapatek, 1975 and Haith and Campos, 1977.) We will first present the basic measures or operational definitions of infant visual perception. One such measure is the infant’s tendency to devote more fixation to some stimuli than to others. Such naturally occurring visual preferences have been used to study a number of aspects of visual perception. Two preferences particularly useful in the study of infant perception are greater attention to patterned than to plain targets and a tendency to devote more attention to a novel than to a previously seen target. Illustrations will show how a general preference for patterning has been used to study the development of visual acuity. Preferences for novelty will be considered for the information they have yielded on more subtle types of pattern perception such as the development of the infant’s ability to differentiate among faces. Following a discussion of basic measures of infant visual perception, particular illustrations of the development of pattern perception from birth to seven months will be presented. The summary will begin with estimates of the infant’s ability to detect patterns and a compilation of the basic visual dimensions to which infants attend in discriminating among patterns. The review will then consider pattern perception from three to seven months.

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Authors
  1. Joseph F. Fagan III
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  2. Patricia Ann Shepherd
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for the Study of Exceptional Children, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey, USA

    Michael Lewis Ph.D.

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Rutgers Medical School - UMDNJ, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA

    Lawrence T. Taft M.D.

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© 1981 Spectrum Publications, Inc.

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Fagan, J.F., Shepherd, P.A. (1981). Theoretical Issues in the Early Development of Visual Perception. In: Lewis, M., Taft, L.T. (eds) Developmental Disabilities. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6314-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6314-9_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-011-6316-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-6314-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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