Perceptual reference points for form and orientation in young infants: Anchors or magnets?

In some domains, certain stimuli are especially salient and efficiently enc oded and are referred to as reference points. One current issue concerns wh ether reference points are associated with regions of increased or decrease d discriminability and function as either perceptual anchors or magnets. In two experiments utilizing the familiarization/novelty-preference procedure , the question of whether 3- to 4-month-old infants' representations of for m and orientation information are structured by perceptual reference points and whether such reference points serve as anchors or magnets is examined. In Experiment 1, infants displayed above-chance discrimination performance for pairs of form stimuli that were equivalently distinct on a physical ba sis, but only when one member of each pair was a "good" form (i.e., diamond , square, or triangle). In Experiment 2, infants displayed above-chance dis crimination performance for pairs of stimuli differing by 7.5 degrees of or ientation, but only when one member of each pair was either horizontal or v ertical. The combined results from the two experiments suggest that "simple " gestalts and main axes (i.e., horizontal and vertical) serve as perceptua l anchors in young infants' representations of form and orientation informa tion.