INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN INFANT FIXATION DURATION - DOMINANCE OF GLOBAL VERSUS LOCAL STIMULUS PROPERTIES

In three experiments, the dominance of global versus local visual prop erties was investigated in 4-month-old infants as a function of indivi dual differences in fixation duration (i.e., ''long-'' versus ''short- looking'' infants). Dominance was assessed through paired-comparison d iscrimination tasks in which global and local visual properties were p laced in competition with one another for infants' attention. Familiar ization time was varied parametrically across experiments. Short-looki ng infants showed responses consistent with a global-to-local sequence of processing: dominance for the global attribute was supplanted by d ominance for the local attribute as familiarization was extended. Long -looking infants, however, did not show dominance for either visual pr operty until after considerable familiarization. When dominance was ob served for this group, it was for the local visual attribute. These fi ndings are in accord with previous observations that long-looking infa nts process visual information more slowly than short-looking infants, but further suggest that there may be qualitative differences in the manner in which the two groups of infants attend to the properties of visual stimuli. Links between this finding and the long-term predictiv e validity of fixation duration are discussed.