Local and Global Hierarchical Visual Processing in Nine- and Twelve-Month Old Infants

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  • February 26, 2019
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  • O'Brien, Margaret
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Abstract
  • According to previous research, it is thought that adults see objects in their perceptual worlds first as global wholes before they notice aspects of objects’ local parts, and that infants see objects first as local parts before mentally “assembling” them into global wholes. This previous research suggests that there is a transition somewhere in infants’ first year from local-oriented processing to the more adult-like global-oriented processing. Finding when this switch occurs could be important in the field of research on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) because research suggests children with ASD never make the switch and keep their local-oriented perceptual bias as adults. This study used an infant-controlled habituation paradigm to assess local and global biases of 9- and 12-month old infants in two different ways: 1) a visual habituation procedure with images on a computer screen, and 2) a manual habituation procedure with physical toys. Local versus Global preferences were assessed using three indexes: 1) visual habituation visual attention, 2) manual habituation visual attention, and 3) manual habituation manual attention. Local-Global scores were correlated with target free-play behaviors in order to determine if local or global biases were reflected in naturalistic free-play. Although they were not statistically significant, results suggest a slightly more global than local preference for 12-month-olds and a slightly more local than global preference for 9-month-olds. There was also a trend for females to become globally oriented earlier than males and for the global bias to start earlier in manual than visual capacities. Correlations between processing style and free-play behaviors were also found. Fingering of the free-play toy was significantly correlated with 9-month-old boys’ Local- Global scores, and mouthing of the free-play toy was significantly correlated with 12-month-old boy’s Local-Global scores. Although the Local-Global score results were not statistically significant, the trends were very promising and consistent with previous research. The meaning of the Local-Global scores’ correlations with free-play behaviors are unclear, but the found relationship supports previous research suggesting local and global biases are reflected in free-play behaviors.
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  • In Copyright
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  • Funding: None
Advisor
  • Reznick, J. Steven
Degree
  • Bachelor of Science
Honors level
  • Honors
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Extent
  • 23

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