Infant Object Segregation Implies Information Integration

doi:10.1006/jecp.2000.2602

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Volume 78, Issue 1, January 2001, Pages 75-83

https://doi.org/10.1006/jecp.2000.2602 Get rights and content

Abstract

Researchers, including Needham (2001, this issue), have found that infants as young as 4.5 months of age have the ability to use featural information to segregate objects. However, considerable research on infants' perception of color, shape, size, orientation, and so on has shown that infants younger than 4.5 months are capable of using these featural cues to discriminate between objects or other test items. Infants as young as 2 months of age also can perceive a moving object as unified. In this article, we argue for an information processing explanation of these results, which centers on the development of infants' ability to integrate both featural and object information. The proposed explanation is based upon L. B. Cohen's (1991, 1998) information processing propositions and is consistent with the evidence on object segregation as well as evidence from our laboratory and others' on infant perception and cognition.

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Citation Excerpt :
For instance, it has been suggested that children rely more on featural information to process faces and start to rely on configural information at the age of 10 (Carey and Diamond, 1977). Further evidence, however, challenges this theory by showing that configural processing has also been found in children aged 4–10 years old (Baenninger, 1994; Campbell et al., 1995; Pascalis et al., 2001; Taylor et al., 2004) or even earlier (Cohen and Cashon, 2001; Turati et al., 2004). Both newborns and older children seem to be capable of discriminating between similar faces (Kelly et al., 2009; Turati et al., 2008), recognizing faces that were previously learned in a different view (Kelly et al., 2009; Turati et al., 2008) and also recognizing both external and internal facial features (Turati et al., 2006).
Facial emotion processing has been extensively studied in schizophrenia patients while general face processing has received less attention. The already published reviews do not address the current scientific literature in a complete manner. Therefore, here we tried to answer some questions that remain to be clarified, particularly: are the non-emotional aspects of facial processing in fact impaired in schizophrenia patients? At the behavioral level, our key conclusions are that visual perception deficit in schizophrenia patients: are not specific to faces; are most often present when the cognitive (e.g. attention) and perceptual demands of the tasks are important; and seems to worsen with the illness chronification. Although, currently evidence suggests impaired second order configural processing, more studies are necessary to determine whether or not holistic processing is impaired in schizophrenia patients. Neural and neurophysiological evidence suggests impaired earlier levels of visual processing, which might involve the deficits in interaction of the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways impacting on further processing. These deficits seem to be present even before the disorder out-set. Although evidence suggests that this deficit may be not specific to faces, further evidence on this question is necessary, in particularly more ecological studies including context and body processing.
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^☆: Preparation of this paper, and much of the research cited in it, was supported, in part, by NIH Grant HD-23397 to the first author, from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Special thanks to Leslie J. Rundell, Marilea Robinson, and Kathryn S. Marks for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

^f2: Address correspondence and reprint requests to Leslie B. Cohen, Department of Psychology, Mezes Hall 330, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712. E-mail: [email protected].

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Regular ArticleInfant Object Segregation Implies Information Integration☆

Abstract

Animal Behavior

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Infant Behavior and Development

Infant Behavior and Development

Infant Behavior and Development

Cognitive Psychology

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Cognition

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Cognitive Development

Infant Behavior and Development

Cognition

Cognitive Psychology

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Regular Article
Infant Object Segregation Implies Information Integration☆