INFANTS USE OF FEATURAL INFORMATION IN THE SEGREGATION OF STATIONARY OBJECTS

Infants' use of featural information (e.g. shape, color, pattern) to s egregate stationary displays was investigated in three main experiment s. The first experiment showed that 7.5-month-old infants, but not you nger infants, were able to form a clear interpretation of a display co nsisting of a curved yellow cylinder and an adjacent tilted blue box a s composed of two separate units. Subsequent experiments determined th at infants as young as 4.5 months of age could segregate into two unit s a simplified version of this display consisting of a straight yellow cylinder and a straight blue box (whether the display was fully visib le or boundary-occluded). These results indicate that infants as young as 4.5 months of age can use object features (at least simple ones) t o determine the locations of object boundaries. The results are discus sed in terms of the processes underlying object segregation in infancy , and why complex features could be difficult for younger, but not old er infants to perceive.