Dominance of Global Visual Properties at Birth.

Six experiments are reported that were aimed at demonstrating the presence in newborns of a perceptual dominance of global over local visual information in hierarchical patterns, similar to that observed in adults (D. Navon, 1977, 1981). The first four experiments showed that, even though both leve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Experimental Psychology. General Vol. 131; no. 3; pp. 398 - 412
Main Authors: Cassia, Viola Macchi, Simion, Francesca, Milani, Idanna
Format: Article
Published: American Psychological Association September 2002
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:Six experiments are reported that were aimed at demonstrating the presence in newborns of a perceptual dominance of global over local visual information in hierarchical patterns, similar to that observed in adults (D. Navon, 1977, 1981). The first four experiments showed that, even though both levels of visual information were detectable by the newborn (Experiments 1A and 1B), global cues enjoyed some advantage over local cues (Experiments 2 and 3). Experiments 4A and 4B demonstrated that the global bias was strictly dependent on the low spatial frequency content of the stimuli and vanished after selective removal of low spatial frequencies. The results are interpreted as suggesting parallels between newborns' visual processing and processing later in development. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.