Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy.
Dev Sci. 2011 Jul;14(4):799-808. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01026.x. Epub 2010 Dec 16.
The present study aimed to investigate whether perceptual completion is available at birth, in the absence of any visual experience. An extremely underspecified kinetic visual display composed of four spatially separated fragments arranged to give rise to an illusory rectangle that occluded a vertical rod (illusory condition) or rotated so as not to elicit perceptual grouping (control condition) was constructed. After newborns' ability to detect the particular kind of rod-and-box display used in the present study had been probed (Experiment 1), they were habituated to the illusory rod-and-box display (Experiment 2), to the control display that did not contain illusory contours (Experiment 3), and to a standard real rod-and-box display akin to those used in previous infants' studies (Experiment 4). Newborns perceived the rod as a connected unit either in the illusory condition (Experiment 2) or in the real condition (Experiment 4), as documented by a preference for a broken rod over a complete rod during the test phase, but not when the occluder was absent (Experiment 3). In all experiments newborns showed no preference between the two test stimuli (control condition), avoiding the possibility that newborns have a spontaneous preference for one test display over the other. Overall, the results of the present study provide evidence that the ability to achieve object unity (1) stems from intrinsic properties of the human perceptual system and (2) is operative from birth, given the right conditions.
本研究旨在探究在缺乏任何视觉经验的情况下,知觉完型是否在出生时就存在。构建了一种极不完备的运动视觉显示,由四个空间上分离的片段组成,排列起来形成一个幻象矩形,该矩形遮挡了一根垂直的杆(幻象条件)或旋转以不引起知觉分组(控制条件)。在探究了新生儿检测本研究中使用的特定棒盒显示的能力后(实验 1),他们习惯了幻象棒盒显示(实验 2)、不包含幻象轮廓的控制显示(实验 3)以及类似于之前婴儿研究中使用的标准真实棒盒显示(实验 4)。通过在测试阶段更喜欢折断的棒而不是完整的棒,证明新生儿在幻象条件下(实验 2)或真实条件下(实验 4)将棒视为一个连接的单元,而不是在没有遮挡物的情况下(实验 3)。在所有实验中,新生儿在两个测试刺激之间都没有表现出偏好(控制条件),避免了新生儿对一种测试显示有自发偏好的可能性。总体而言,本研究的结果提供了证据,证明实现物体统一的能力(1)源自人类感知系统的固有属性,(2)在适当的条件下,从出生就开始运作。