Abstract
Previous research has shown that 5-month-old infants visually anticipate a moving object's appearance after it disappears behind a screen. This experiment assesses the underlying basis for such anticipatory tracking. Three tracking tasks were presented to 5- and 9-month-old infants. In the Permanence task, the object's continuous existence was apparently violated while it was behind a screen. In the Feature and Trajectory tasks, the object's features or trajectory changed while behind the screen. Disruptions in the infant's smooth visual pursuit of the object were recorded. Five-mont-olds showed disruptions of visual tracking in the Feature and Trajectory tasks, but not in the Permanence task. The tracking of the 9-month-olds was disrupted in all three tasks. We conclude that both 5- and 9-month-olds possess rules specifying the identity of a moving object which is occluded. For 5-month-olds these rules are based upon the object's features and trajectory, but not upon a concept of object permanence. For 9-month-olds all three rules—feature, trajectory, and permanence—are utilized in visual tracking.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call