Infants’ Speed Discrimination

This study addressed the question whether 6‐month‐olds’ speed discrimination is ratio dependent and whether an oblique effect (i.e., more accurate discrimination of cardinally as opposed to obliquely oriented objects) affects their speed discrimination skills. Infants were habituated to visual displays showing a ball moving with constant speed and tested with the familiar and a novel speed in the test phase. This ball moved either on a cardinally or obliquely oriented trajectory. Irrespective of orientation, infants looked longer at the novel speed when speeds differed by a ratio of 1:2, whereas they looked indiscriminable at the novel and familiar speeds when they differed by a ratio of 2:3. Our results show remarkable parallels to infants’ ratio‐dependent discrimination behavior in other domains (time, distance, and number), implying that different magnitudes may be processed by the same underlying mechanism. However, our findings also indicate that speed discrimination was not influenced by spatial orientation in a similar way as has been found for other visual perceptual processes

Cognitive psychology · Geometry · Oblique case · Perception · Visual perception · Child and Animal Learning Development · Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills · Mathematics · Neuroscience · Psychology · Spatial Cognition and Navigation

• A theory of magnitude

  Open Access•Vincent Walsh•Trends in Cognitive Sciences•2003

  Añadir item

• The parietal cortex and the representation of time, space, number and other magnitudes

  Open Access•Domenica Bueti, Vincent Walsh•Philosophical Transactions of the…•2009

  Añadir item

• Velocity thresholds in human infants

  Richard N Aslin, Richard Ν Aslin et al.•Developmental Psychology•1990

  Añadir item

• Perception and discrimination as a function of stimulus orientation

  Stuart Appelle•Psychological Bulletin•1972

  Añadir item