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Perceiving “Outside the Box” Occurs Early in Development: Evidence for Boundary Extension in Three‐ to Seven‐Month‐Old Infants
Author(s) -
Quinn Paul C.,
Intraub Helene
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01000.x
Subject(s) - psychology , extension (predicate logic) , developmental psychology , stimulus (psychology) , visual angle , visual perception , child development , boundary (topology) , cognitive psychology , perception , artificial intelligence , computer science , programming language , mathematical analysis , mathematics , neuroscience
This investigation examined whether infants display boundary extension —a tendency to remember more of a visual scene than was presented. Three‐ to 7‐month‐olds were familiarized with a photograph of a visual scene, and tested with wide‐angle versus close‐up views of the scene. Infants preferred the close‐up, indicating that they perceived the wide angle (the one consistent with boundary extension) as more familiar. Converging experiments showed that: (a) infants did not spontaneously prefer the close‐up, (b) adults did not judge the wide angle to be more similar to the familiarization stimulus, and (c) infants spontaneously preferred the close‐up when the photographs depicted outline objects without backgrounds. The findings suggest that infants anticipate information that lies beyond the borders of a scene view.