Bertenthal B I, Campos J J, Haith M M
Child Dev. 1980 Dec;51(4):1072-80.
This study examines the development of infants' sensitivity to the organization of a subjective-contour stimulus array. 5- and 7-month-olds were sequentially shown 3 stimulus arrays of elements, only 1 of which was capable of producing subjective contours. Only the orientational relations among elements was varied. An infant habituation control procedure was used to test infants' abilities to discriminate these arrays. The results indicated that (1) only 7-month-olds showed consistent differential responsiveness to changes from an illusory array to a nonillusory array or vice versa, (2) 5-month-olds showed a weaker tendency to respond similarly and only when they had prolonged experience with the illusory array, and (3) neither age group showed much response recovery to a change from one nonillusory array to another. These findings are interpreted as indicating that infants can perceive subjective contours. However, the age of this accomplishment probably varies with both the characteristics of the array and the abilities of the observer.
本研究考察了婴儿对主观轮廓刺激阵列组织的敏感性发展。对5个月和7个月大的婴儿依次展示3组元素刺激阵列，其中只有1组能够产生主观轮廓。仅元素之间的方向关系有所变化。采用婴儿习惯化控制程序来测试婴儿区分这些阵列的能力。结果表明：（1）只有7个月大的婴儿对从虚幻阵列到非虚幻阵列的变化或反之表现出一致的差异反应；（2）5个月大的婴儿只有在对虚幻阵列有较长时间体验时，才有较弱的类似反应倾向；（3）两个年龄组对从一个非虚幻阵列到另一个非虚幻阵列的变化均未表现出明显的反应恢复。这些发现被解释为表明婴儿能够感知主观轮廓。然而，这一成就的年龄可能因阵列的特征和观察者的能力而异。
