TY - JOUR
T1 - From local to global processing
T2 - The development of illusory contour perception
AU - Nayar, Kritika
AU - Franchak, John
AU - Adolph, Karen
AU - Kiorpes, Lynne
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar award to LK and grant # R37HD33486 from NICHD to KEA. We thank Kimberly Feltner, Kasey Soska, Chao Tang, and Angela Voyles for their contributions to the design and conduct of the study and David Comalli, Megan Cray, and Vivian Song for their help coding the eye tracking data.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2015/3/1
Y1 - 2015/3/1
N2 - Global visual processing is important for segmenting scenes, extracting form from background, and recognizing objects. Local processing involves attention to the local elements, contrast, and boundaries of an image at the expense of extracting a global percept. Previous work is inconclusive regarding the relative development of local and global processing. Some studies suggest that global perception is already present by 8. months of age, whereas others suggest that the ability arises during childhood and continues to develop during adolescence. We used a novel method to assess the development of global processing in 3- to 10-year-old children and an adult comparison group. We used Kanizsa illusory contours as an assay of global perception and measured responses on a touch-sensitive screen while monitoring eye position with a head-mounted eye tracker. Participants were tested using a similarity match-to-sample paradigm. Using converging measures, we found a clear developmental progression with age such that the youngest children performed near chance on the illusory contour discrimination, whereas 7- and 8-year-olds performed nearly perfectly, as did adults. There was clear evidence of a gradual shift from a local processing strategy to a global one; young children looked predominantly at and touched the "pacman" inducers of the illusory form, whereas older children and adults looked predominantly at and touched the middle of the form. These data show a prolonged developmental trajectory in appreciation of global form, with a transition from local to global visual processing between 4 and 7. years of age.
AB - Global visual processing is important for segmenting scenes, extracting form from background, and recognizing objects. Local processing involves attention to the local elements, contrast, and boundaries of an image at the expense of extracting a global percept. Previous work is inconclusive regarding the relative development of local and global processing. Some studies suggest that global perception is already present by 8. months of age, whereas others suggest that the ability arises during childhood and continues to develop during adolescence. We used a novel method to assess the development of global processing in 3- to 10-year-old children and an adult comparison group. We used Kanizsa illusory contours as an assay of global perception and measured responses on a touch-sensitive screen while monitoring eye position with a head-mounted eye tracker. Participants were tested using a similarity match-to-sample paradigm. Using converging measures, we found a clear developmental progression with age such that the youngest children performed near chance on the illusory contour discrimination, whereas 7- and 8-year-olds performed nearly perfectly, as did adults. There was clear evidence of a gradual shift from a local processing strategy to a global one; young children looked predominantly at and touched the "pacman" inducers of the illusory form, whereas older children and adults looked predominantly at and touched the middle of the form. These data show a prolonged developmental trajectory in appreciation of global form, with a transition from local to global visual processing between 4 and 7. years of age.
KW - Eye tracking
KW - Global form perception
KW - Global processing
KW - Kanizsa illusory contours
KW - Match-to-sample
KW - Perceptual development
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.11.001
DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.11.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 25514785
AN - SCOPUS:84949123548
SN - 0022-0965
VL - 131
SP - 38
EP - 55
JO - Journal of experimental child psychology
JF - Journal of experimental child psychology
ER -