INFANTS INTEGRATION OF INFORMATION FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES IN OBJECT SEGREGATION

The present research investigated 9.5-month-old infants' use of spatia l and featural information when determining the locations of object bo undaries. Infants were shown displays for which spatial information (t he relative positions of the boxes) and featural information (the colo urs and patterns of the boxes) led to either the same or different int erpretations of the display. Infants' interpretations of the displays were assessed by measuring their looking time at an event in which a s creen passed either between or behind the objects. The results indicat ed that when the spatial information provided a clear interpretation o f the display, infants used this interpretation even when featural inf ormation conflicted. In contrast, featural information was only used t o interpret the display when spatial information did not allow a clear interpretation (1997a). These results are similar to those of Needham and Baillargeon in their indication that infants use multiple sources of information to segregate displays and that their strategies for de termining which information to use are sensitive to characteristics of each source of information such as its likelihood of providing a veri dical interpretation of a display. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.