Organisation perceptive, délai inter­ essais et catégorisation chez les bébés de quatre mois

Abstract

Summary : Perceptual organization, inter-trial delay and categorization in 4 month-old infants. The relationship between four-month-olds' capacity of categorization and their perceptual organization, with figures that comprise a symmetry axis, was studied under different habituation conditions. Four experiments were conducted. In the first two experiments, figures composed of six elements were presented in the habituation phase. Three elements were displayed on each part ofthe vertical axis. The elements varied from figure to figure. In the test phase, a figure constructed in the same way was presented in alternance with a figure produced by a complete permutation (experiment 1) or a partial permutation (experiment 2) along the vertical axis. In the third andfourth experiments, the figures' and permutations' axis was horizontal. The delays of the beginning and end of trials were varied in the different experiments. As opposed to the results obtained by Rovira and Lecuyer (1995) with equivalent figures, in discrimination situations, infants did not seem to achieve categorization. Delays used for starting or ending a trial and delays between trials had an important effect on trials' duration. However no clear-cut relation was found between categorization performances and trial durations. The results are discussed. Key words : infants, perceptual organization, symmetry, categorization, habituation method.