Journal
COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Volume 27, Issue 6, Pages 923-935Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.cogsci.2003.07.001
Keywords
category learning; perceptual organization; infant cognition
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The relationship between perceptual categorization and organization processes in 3- to 4-month-old infants was explored. The question was whether an invariant part abstracted during category learning could interfere with Gestalt organizational processes. Experiment I showed that the infants could parse a circle in accord with good continuation from visual patterns consisting of a circle and a complex polygon. In Experiments 2 and 3, however, this parsing was interfered with by a prior category familiarization experience in which infants were presented with visual patterns consisting of a pacman shape and a complex polygon. Part I of Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the infants recognized the pacman as familiar, and Part 2 demonstrated that the representation of the pacman blocked the subsequent parsing of the circle. The results suggest that a cognitive system of flexible feature creation can override organizational principles with which a perceptual system may come pre-equipped. (C) 2003 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
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