Infants' perception of human body orientation and the effect of a surrounding square

Abstract

We examined two hypotheses about infants' perception of orientation. The first is that infants develop an expectation that the human body is normally vertical. To examine this hypothesis, we compared the preferential looking to vertical and oblique versions of a silhouette of a human body, to an inverted body, and to a grating. Our second hypothesis is that presenting a figure inside a frame affects the perception of orientation. To examine the second hypothesis, we placed the figure inside a surrounding square that was oriented normally or at an oblique angle. Four- to seven-month-old infants (N = 78) participated. The results showed that 6–7-month-old infants preferred the oblique human body presented upright; no such preference was observed for the inverted body or the grating. For all types of displays, the surrounding square influenced preferences. Our results suggest that (a) 6–7-month-old infants have specific expectations about the orientation of the human body, and (b) surrounding displays with a square could influence the perception of the orientation of the human body, as well as that of a grating.