The effects of visual blur on infant preference behavior.
Item
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Title
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The effects of visual blur on infant preference behavior.
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Identifier
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AAI9807979
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identifier
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9807979
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Creator
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Pagano, Maria.
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Contributor
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Advisers: Louise Hainline | Israel Abramov
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental | Psychology, Experimental | Biology, Neuroscience
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Abstract
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Does the development of sensory processing effect preferential looking behavior? Three experiments were performed, each with a sample of 13 three- and four-month-old infants to provide insight into this question. In addition, a fourth experiment was conducted to determine if a curvilinear preference behavior known to be present by three months of age could be reproduced when using adult subjects.;Experiments 1 and 2, used paired presentations of "unfiltered" stimulus pairings known to elicit specific behavioral preferences during the first three months of development and "filtered" stimulus pairings that mimicked the information processed by the visual system of a one-month-old infant. It was hypothesized that when infants viewed the clear stimulus pairings behavioral preference would be consistent for the age range tested. However, when the same group of infants were shown filtered stimulus pairings, preference behavior would revert to preference consistent with one-month-old behavior. Results of these two studies demonstrated that development of sensory processing was related to changes in pattern preference and that the development of pattern preference could better be explained using a Linear Systems Model.;Experiment 3 examined the influence of spatial frequency and contrast at the fundamental frequency component of an image on infant pattern preference. Infants viewed paired presentations of clear rectilinear stimuli alongside its curvilinear counterpart which had been equated for amount of spatial frequency contained in the rectilinear stimulus. It was hypothesized that equating the stimulus pairings for spatial frequency would produce the same behavior as filtering had done in Experiments 1 and 2. Consistent with our predictions infants did not significantly prefer either of the stimuli.;Twenty adult participants took part in Experiment 4 where preference behavior was examined in both clear and filtered conditions to determine if a relationship existed between adult and infant preference behavior. Additionally, adult subjects took part in either one of two ranking tasks in order to examine possible underlying mechanisms responsible for adult preference behavior. While the adult preference behavior did not appear related to infant preference behavior across all testing conditions we nonetheless did find significant preference behavior across all clear condition stimulus presentations.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
