THE MEMORABILITY AND DISCRIMINABILITY OF PRIMITIVE PERCEPTUAL UNITS IN INFANCY

Three-month-olds were operantly trained to kick to move a block mobile that displayed a horizontal and a vertical line (''textons'') arrange d as L, T, or + on each side. Delayed recognition was tested either 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9 days later with either the same or a different displ ay. Infants failed to discriminate between Ls and Ts after delays long er than 1 hr but discriminated both from +s, which contains an additio nal texton (the line crossing), after delays as long as 7 days but not 9. Also, they remembered +s longer than Ls and Ts. These data indicat e that the same primitive perceptual units that mediate adult texture segregation are differentially discriminated and differentially memora ble in early infancy.