The long-term goal of this project is to form a description of the development of object perception early in life. Current developmental research into object perception has failed to take advantage of the plethora of theoretical and empirical work present on this topic in the adult literature, and thus a complete and comprehensive description of the development of object perception is not yet available. The proposed research will use adult theories of object perception to guide the construction of a description and analysis of object perception during early development. This description will expand our understanding of young infants' ability to represent the visual world to levels beyond the simple ability to distinguish between sensory primitives, such as brightness and contrast. Three major points are addressed: (1) Is the visual system capable of forming a perceptual representation of shape at 3 months? This question will be tested using precise stimulus controls that have never before been applied to the study of infant visual perception. This test will establish a new benchmark for the ontogenetic beginning of shape representation. (2) Do young infants possess the ability to perceive the same real world entity from different views of a single volume (a cone, brick, cylinder, etc.), and if not, does this ability develop? This ability is called viewpoint invariant perception. Several adult theorists argue that viewpoint invariant perception of single volumes, or volumetric primitives, is critical to object perception, because these volumes may be the primitives, or building blocks used to represent objects. Whether these primitives actually exist in infant vision, and whether they function early in development, has never been explored. (3) When does the ability to perceive two different views of a complex object as the same real-world entity (viewpoint invariant object perception) emerge, and how do infants accomplish this task? These questions will be addressed using multiple measures of infant visual perception. Addressing these questions will narrow the gap between what is known about object perception in infants and the information available regarding adult perception. A basic understanding of how this process functions will aid in developing theories and guiding research into the development of categorization as well as object perception because the invariant perception of single objects may serve as the basis for the development of perceptual similarity- based categorization. The description constructed from the proposed research will assist in understanding the deviations from normal development in object perception and object categorization present in various types of developmental disorders, including autism.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD038315-03
Application #
6637038
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-4 (01))
Program Officer
Feerick, Margaret M
Project Start
2001-08-01
Project End
2006-05-31
Budget Start
2003-06-01
Budget End
2004-05-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$101,588
Indirect Cost
Name
State University of NY, Binghamton
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
090189965
City
Binghamton
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
13902
Zack, Elizabeth; Barr, Rachel; Gerhardstein, Peter et al. (2009) Infant imitation from television using novel touch screen technology. Br J Dev Psychol 27:13-26
Baker, Thomas J; Tse, James; Gerhardstein, Peter et al. (2008) Contour integration by 6-month-old infants: discrimination of distinct contour shapes. Vision Res 48:136-48
Kraebel, Kimberly S; West, Rebecca N; Gerhardstein, Peter (2007) The influence of training views on infants'long-term memory for simple 3D shapes. Dev Psychobiol 49:406-20
Kraebel, Kimberly S; Gerhardstein, Peter C (2006) Three-month-old infants' object recognition across changes in viewpoint using an operant learning procedure. Infant Behav Dev 29:11-23
Gerhardstein, Peter; Kovacs, Ilona; Ditre, Joseph et al. (2004) Detection of contour continuity and closure in three-month-olds. Vision Res 44:2981-8
Gerhardstein, Peter; Kraebel, Kimberly S; Gillis, Jennifer et al. (2002) Visual search for high-level configural differences as well as low-level critical features is highly efficient early in childhood. Dev Psychobiol 41:241-52