PERCEPTION OF OBJECT UNITY IN YOUNG INFANTS - THE ROLES OF MOTION, DEPTH, AND ORIENTATION

One hundred twenty-eight 4-month-old infants were habituated to one of several displays that depicted two rod pieces above and below a box. The effects of common motion, background texture, and orientation of t he rod pieces on infants' perception of unity of the partially occlude d rod were examined. infants who viewed displays in which the rod piec es were aligned and presented in front of a textured background, subse quently looked longer at a broken rod (two rod pieces separated by a g ap) than at a complete rod, implying that the infants experienced the rod pieces as connected behind the box in the first display. Infants w ho viewed displays with no background texture, or displays in which th e rod pieces were nonaligned but relatable (i.e., connected if extende d behind the occluder), looked equally at the two posthabituation disp lays. infants who viewed displays containing nonrelatable rod pieces l ooked longer at the complete rod, implying that nonrelatable edges spe cify disjoint objects to 4-month-olds. A threshold model, stipulating that perception of object unity is supported by multiple visual cues, is proposed to account for these results. Veridical perception of moti on of display elements, depth ordering, and edge orientation are neces sary, but not individually sufficient, to support young infants' perce ption of object unity.