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Emergence of Global Shape Processing Continues Through Adolescence
Author(s) -
Scherf K. Suzanne,
Behrmann Marlene,
Kimchi Ruth,
Luna Beatriz
Publication year - 2009
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.1467-8624.2008.01252.x
Subject(s) - psychology , perception , task (project management) , identification (biology) , element (criminal law) , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , object (grammar) , artificial intelligence , computer science , neuroscience , botany , management , political science , law , economics , biology
The developmental trajectory of perceptual organization in humans is unclear. This study investigated perceptual grouping abilities across a wide age range (8–30 years) using a classic compound letter global/local (GL) task and a more fine‐grained microgenetic prime paradigm (MPP) with both few‐ and many‐element hierarchical displays. In the GL task, contrary to adults, both children and adolescents exhibited a classic local bias. In the MPP, all 3 age groups evinced a bias to individuate the few‐element displays; however, the ability to encode the global shape of the many‐element displays at the short prime durations increased with age. These results indicate that the full process of garnering shape information from perceptual grouping, which is essential for the ability to do fast and efficient object recognition and identification, develops late into adolescence.