Role of geons in object recognition across ages

Little research has been conducted regarding the developmental implications of Biederman's 1987 Recognition by Components cheery. The present stud, co mpared objects fragmented according to this theory, i.e., vertices were lef t intact and segments were deleted, with objects that were randomly fragmen ted. A total of 169 students from three age groups (first grade, fourth gra de, and college) participated. Approximately half of the participants viewe d pictures with intact vertices and half viewed the randomly fragmented pic tures. Analysis showed that participants recognized more pictures across gr oups: however, there were no significant differences between the two sets o f pictures. This finding suggests thar vertices are important bur are nor n ecessary for object recognition. The role of midsegments in object recognit ion is also discussed.