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| Research article summary (published 30 Dec 2002): |
Visual context integration is not fully developed in 4-year-old children.
Full Abstract
Long-range horizontal interactions supporting contour integration were found to be weaker in children than in adults (Kovács et al, 1999 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 96 12204-12209). In the present study, integration on a larger scale, between a target and its context was investigated. Contextual modulation of the percept of a local target can be directly measured in the case of geometric illusions. We compared the magnitude of a size contrast illusion (Ebbinghaus illusion or Titchener circles) in children and adults. 4-year-old children and adults performed 2AFC size comparisons between two target disks in the classical Ebbinghaus illusion display and in two other modified versions. We found that the magnitude of the illusion effect was significantly smaller in children than in adults. Our interpretation is that context integration is not fully developed in 4-year-old children. Closer-to-veridical-size estimations by children demonstrate that the perception of the local target is less affected by stimulus context in their case. We suggest that immature cortical connectivity is behind the reduced contextual sensitivity in children.
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Author information
Author/s: Káldy, Zsuzsa (Z); Kovács, Ilona (I);
Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. kaldy(-atsign-)ruccs.rutgers.edu
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article
Journal: Perception (Perception), published in England. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2003-; vol 32 (issue 6) : pp 657-66
Dates: Created 2003/08/01; Completed 2003/10/09; Revised 2006/11/15;
PMID: 12892427, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
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