Gestalt relations and object perception: a developmental study. Spelke, E. S., Breinlinger, K., Jacobson, K., & Phillips, A. Perception, 22(12):1483-501, 1993.
abstract   bibtex   
We investigated whether adults and infants aged 3, 5, and 9 months perceive the unity and boundaries of visible objects in accord with the Gestalt relations of color and texture similarity, good continuation, or good form. Adults and infants were presented with simple but unfamiliar displays in which all three Gestalt relations specified either one object or two objects-perception of the objects was assessed by a verbal rating method in the adults and by a preferential looking method in the infants. The Gestalt relations appeared to influence the adults' perceptions strongly. However, the relations appeared to have no effect on the perceptions of 3-month-old infants and weak effects on the perceptions of 5-month-old and 9-month-old infants. The findings support the suggestion that developmental changes in object perception occur slowly. These changes, and the organizational phenomena to which Gestalt psychology called attention, may depend in part on the child's developing ability to recognize objects of particular kinds.
@Article{Spelke1993,
  author   = {E. S. Spelke and K. Breinlinger and K. Jacobson and A. Phillips},
  journal  = {Perception},
  title    = {Gestalt relations and object perception: a developmental study.},
  year     = {1993},
  number   = {12},
  pages    = {1483-501},
  volume   = {22},
  abstract = {We investigated whether adults and infants aged 3, 5, and 9 months
	perceive the unity and boundaries of visible objects in accord with
	the Gestalt relations of color and texture similarity, good continuation,
	or good form. Adults and infants were presented with simple but unfamiliar
	displays in which all three Gestalt relations specified either one
	object or two objects-perception of the objects was assessed by a
	verbal rating method in the adults and by a preferential looking
	method in the infants. The Gestalt relations appeared to influence
	the adults' perceptions strongly. However, the relations appeared
	to have no effect on the perceptions of 3-month-old infants and weak
	effects on the perceptions of 5-month-old and 9-month-old infants.
	The findings support the suggestion that developmental changes in
	object perception occur slowly. These changes, and the organizational
	phenomena to which Gestalt psychology called attention, may depend
	in part on the child's developing ability to recognize objects of
	particular kinds.},
  keywords = {Adolescent, Adult, Age Factors, Attention, Discrimination Learning, Female, Gestalt Theory, Humans, Infant, Male, Mental Recall, Optical Illusions, Orientation, Pattern Recognition, Perceptual Closure, Psychophysics, Visual, 8090623},
}

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