Infants’ sensitivity to familiar size: The effect of memory on spatial perception

Granrud, Carl E.; Haake, Robert; Yonas, Albert

doi:10.3758/bf03202878

Cited by 51 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Seven-month-old infants perceive the spatial layout depicted in Ames's (1951) trapezoidal window illusion, an illusion created by several pictorial depth cues (Kaufmann, Maland, & Yonas, 1981;Yonas, Cleaves, & Pettersen, 1978), and they respond appropriately to the depth cues of familiar size (Granrud, Haake, & Yonas, 1985;Yonas, Pettersen, & Granrud, 1982), relative size (yonas, Granrud, & Pettersen, 1985), and interposition . Five-month-olds, in contrast, have not been found to be sensitive to any of these depth cues (for a review of these studies, see .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants’ sensitivity to the depth cue of shading

Granrud

Yonas

Opland

1985

Perception & Psychophysics

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101

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Five-and 7-month-old infants were tested for sensitivity to the depth cue of shading. Infants were presented with two displays: a surface in which a convexity and a concavity were molded and a photograph in which shading specified a convexity and a concavity. Each display was presented under both monocular and binocular viewing conditions. Reaching was observed as the dependent measure. Infants in both age groups reached preferentially for the actual convexity in both the monocular and binocular viewing conditions. In the monocular photograph condition, the 7-month-olds reached preferentially for the apparent convexity specified by shading, indicating that they perceived it to be an actual convexity. These infants showed no significant reaching preference in the binocular photograph condition. This finding rules out interpretations of the infants' reaching not based on perceived depth. The results therefore suggest that the 7-month-olds perceived depth from shading. The 5-month-olds showed no significant reaching preferences when viewing the photograph; thus, they showed no evidence of depth perception from shading. These findings are consistent with the results of a number of studies that have investigated infants' sensitivity to pictorial depth cues. Together, these studies suggest that the ability to perceive depth from pictorial cues may first develop between 5 and 7 months of age.Shading, variation in luminance in the retinal image, provides an effective source of visual information for the three-dimensional shapes of objects. Shading can create compelling impressions of three-dimensionality in paintings and photographs, and can specify the shapes of objects in natural environments. Shading provides information for three-dimensional shape because of the lawful relationship that exists between the orientation of a surface and luminance in the retinal image projected by the surface (Gibson, 1950). A surface will reflect more light when it is oriented orthogonally to the source of illumination than when it is oblique to the incident light. As a result, if illumination does not vary and if a surface is uniform in reflectance, gradients of luminance in the retinal image correspond to changes in the surface's orientation and, therefore, can specify three-dimensional object shape.Perceiving shape from shading, however, involves a formidable problem for the visual system. Shading is potentially ambiguous because information for shape, or surface orientation, is confounded in the luminance values in the retinal image. The luminance of any point in the

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants’ sensitivity to the depth cue of shading

Granrud

Yonas

Opland

1985

Perception & Psychophysics

Self Cite

101

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“…To recognize that a nearer retinal picture takes up more space than a retinal picture further away does is important to the object-aperture relationship. Reviews of developmental size problems reveal that before six months of age infants can perceive size irrespective of distance, and compare the relationship between an object and an aperture (Piaget and Inhelder 1956;Granrud, Haake et al 1985;Slater, Mattock et al 1990;Spelke, Breinlinger et al 1992). But even if they know that the retinal images vary with distance, they are unaware of how much they vary (Piaget and Inhelder 1956), and from Study III we see that it is not until 20 months of age that children can compare sizes.…”

Section: Making a Choicementioning

confidence: 88%

“…Some researchers have found that already at one week old, infants can perceive an object's physical size (size constancy) (Slater, Mattock et al 1990). Others have found that it is not until binocular vision appears, at three months, that infants can identify objects by their physical size (Granrud, Haake et al 1985). Still others propose that infants are not able to identify objects by their size until 4½ months (McKenzie, Tootell et al 1980;Wilcox 1999).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fitting objects into holes: On the development of spatial cognition skills.

Örnkloo¹,

Hofsten²

2007

Developmental Psychology

121

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The authors examined 14-to 26-month-old infants' understanding of the spatial relationships between objects and apertures in an object manipulation task. The task was to insert objects with various cross-sections (circular, square, rectangular, ellipsoid, and triangular) into fitting apertures. A successful solution required the infant to mentally rotate the object to be fit into the aperture and use that information to plan the action. The object was presented standing up in half of the trials; in the other half, it was lying down. The results showed that infants solved the problem consistently from age 22 months and that a successful solution was associated with appropriate preadjustments before the hand arrived with the block to the aperture. No sex differences were found.

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“…In two rather recent studies (Granrud, Haake, & Yonas, 1985;Yonas, Pettersen, & Granrud, 1982), it has been concluded that 7-month-old infants can use familiar size as a cue to relative distance. In the first study, photographs of faces were the familiar objects.…”

Section: Responses To the Playing Cardmentioning

confidence: 98%

Familiar size and the theory of off-sized perceptions

Gogel

Silva

1987

Perception & Psychophysics

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The role of familiar size in the visual judgment of size and distance was investigated using reduced conditions of observation and instructions that called for either objective or apparent size and distance judgments. Each observer was presented with one object at one distance (56, 107, or 149 cm). This object, which was of constant physical size, was either a normal-sized playing card or a blank rectangle of the same size as the playing card. Distance responses were yerbal and size responses were tactual. For the blank rectangle, reported distance remained constant, whereas judged size decreased as physical distance increased for both objective and apparent instructions. For the playing card, reported distance increased as physical distance increased for both objective and apparent instructions. The judged size for the playing card, however, remained constant with objective instructions but decreased with apparent instructions as the physical distance increased. This pattern of results is consistent with the theory that, to a substantial degree, familiar size contributes to spatial responses by means of a cognitive process based upon familiar objects' appearing as smaller or larger than normal. Under conditions in which the familiar objects are normal in size (as in the present experiment), this process acts to correct a direct response to distance for any errors that might be present in the perception of distance. Familiar Size and the Size-Distance Invariance HypothesisTo investigate whether the characteristic size of a familiar object provides an effective cue to its distance from an observer, (1) verbal reports of distance often are used to measure perceived distance, and (2) cues to distance other than that of familiar size are reduced by having the observer view the familiar object monocularly in an otherwise dark visual field, with accommodation held constant. It has been found, under these conditions, that the observer's report of the distance of a familiar object often varies directly with its physical distance, if the familiar object is normal in size, or with its simulated distance, if the familiar object is larger or smaller than normal, where simulated distance is the distance at which the familiar object of normal size would need to be placed in order to subtend a particular visual angle (Epstein,

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Infants’ sensitivity to familiar size: The effect of memory on spatial perception

Cited by 51 publications

References 43 publications

Infants’ sensitivity to the depth cue of shading

Infants’ sensitivity to the depth cue of shading

Fitting objects into holes: On the development of spatial cognition skills.

Familiar size and the theory of off-sized perceptions

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