PERCEPTION OF 3-DIMENSIONAL CUES IN EARLY INFANCY

Three experiments examined infants' processing of 3D information in st atic images. Three-month-olds familiarized with micropatterns that app eared to adults to be 3D blocks illuminated from the top subsequently preferred a test array that contained a micropattern that appeared to be a block illuminated from the bottom; however, they failed to detect comparable discrepancies in 2D images. Thus, 3-month-olds are sensiti ve to 3D cues in static images. In another experiment, infants failed to exhibit a preference between an array containing a single novel ele ment among familiar elements and another array containing a single fam iliar element among novel elements. Thus, unlike discrepancies in fund amental features such as line-crossings, discrepancies in 3D cues fail ed to pop-out and engage infants' attention. These results reveal that 3-month-olds are sensitive to 3D cues in static images. However, disc repancies based on these cues may not engage infants' attention like t hose based on fundamental features. (C) 1998 Academic Press.