Visual development in human infants: Binding features, surfaces, and objects

The development of visual binding in humans has been investigated with psyc hophysical tasks assessing the extent to which young infants achieve percep tual completion of partly occluded objects. These experiments lead to two c onclusions. First, neonates are capable of figure-ground segregation, but d o not perceive the unity of a centre-occluded object; the ability to percei ve object unity emerges over the first several postnatal months. Second, by 4 months, infants rely on a range of Gestalt visual information in perceiv ing unity, including common motion, alignment, and good form. This developm ental pattern is thought to be built on the ability to detect, and then uti lize, appropriate visual information in support of the binding of features into surfaces and objects. Evidence from changes in infant attention, compu tational modelling, and developmental neurophysiology is cited that is cons istent with this view.