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Using Saliency Maps to Separate Competing Processes in Infant Visual Cognition
Author(s) -
Althaus Nadja,
Mareschal Denis
Publication year - 2012
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.1467-8624.2012.01766.x
Subject(s) - psychology , contrast (vision) , object (grammar) , cognition , feature (linguistics) , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , focus (optics) , eye tracking , concept learning , pattern recognition (psychology) , computer science , neuroscience , linguistics , philosophy , physics , optics
This article presents an eye‐tracking study using a novel combination of visual saliency maps and “area‐of‐interest” analyses to explore online feature extraction during category learning in infants. Category learning in 12‐month‐olds ( N = 22) involved a transition from looking at high‐saliency image regions to looking at more informative, highly variable object parts. In contrast, 4‐month‐olds ( N = 27) exhibited a different pattern displaying a similar decreasing impact of saliency accompanied by a steady focus on the object’s center, indicating that targeted feature extraction during category learning develops across the 1st year of life. These results illustrate how the effects of lower and higher level processes may be disentangled using a combined saliency map and area‐of‐interest analysis.