Different Gestalt processing for different actions? Comparing object-directed reaching and looking time measures

Six experiments compared the Gestalt processing that mediates infant reaching and looking behaviors. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the positioning and timing of 8- and 9-month-olds’ reaching was influenced by remembered relative motion. Experiment 2 suggested that a visible gap, without this relati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental child psychology 2005-02, Vol.90 (2), p.89-113
Main Authors: Vishton, Peter M., Ware, Elizabeth A., Badger, Amy N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action
Biological and medical sciences
Child development
Cues
Developmental psychology
Female
Fitts’s law
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gestalt
Hand Strength
Humans
Infant
Looking
Male
Memory
Motion
Motion Perception
Newborn. Infant
Perception
Perceptual Closure
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaching
Satellites (Aerospace)
Visual Perception
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Summary:Six experiments compared the Gestalt processing that mediates infant reaching and looking behaviors. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the positioning and timing of 8- and 9-month-olds’ reaching was influenced by remembered relative motion. Experiment 2 suggested that a visible gap, without this relative motion, was not sufficient to produce these effects. Experiment 3 found that 6- and 7-month-olds required both remembered relative motion and a continuously visible gap to affect reaching; when two separate objects were placed adjacent to one another, they were treated as though they were connected. Experiments 4 and 5, using a looking time measure, identified a dissociation between looking and reaching performance. In Experiment 6, 6- and 7-month-olds’ reaching was influenced when display parts differed in shape and color. In these experiments, Gestalt processing for looking was more influenced by remembered information than was Gestalt processing for reaching. For reaching, a low weighting of separation cues was also apparent.
ISSN:0022-0965
1096-0457
DOI:10.1016/j.jecp.2004.10.002