INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN INFANT VISUAL-ATTENTION - 4-MONTH-OLDS DISCRIMINATION AND GENERALIZATION OF GLOBAL AND LOCAL STIMULUS PROPERTIES

Cognitive performance and development is negatively correlated with fi xation duration patterns during infancy, and evidence suggests that lo ng-looking infants may process visual information more slowly than sho rt-looking infants. 3 experiments described here tested the possibilit y that these differences may be due to differential sensitivity to glo bal and local visual information. Infants were administered discrimina tion and generalization tasks involving global and local information a t varying levels of familiarization time. Results indicated that 4-mon th-olds process visual information in a global-to-local sequence. Both long- and short-looking infants were sensitive to both types of infor mation, although long lookers required additional familiarization time to match the performance of short lookers. Finally, apparent ''genera lization'' of global information at brief familiarization levels was t raced to insensitivity to local stimulus properties. The results do no t support the hypothesis that long- and short-looking infants are diff erentially sensitive to global versus local visual information at 4 mo nths of age.