Origins of Object Knowledge

十个实验调查了人类婴儿对部分遮挡表面的统一性感知的早期发展。这些实验主要集中在婴儿通过测试从信息处理角度得出的预测来感知物体的过程。这一观点强调了适当的视觉技能对于感知物体分离的优先必要性，以及在全景和遮挡条件下观看物体的一段时间。这种体验促使我们对物体有了更透彻的理解(敏感度优先假设)。这些实验遵循类似的策略：探索在基本视觉加工和物体感知任务中的个体差异表现。由于运动、深度和边缘方向在物体知觉中的中心位置，实验集中在这三种线索的作用上。通过两种方法评估绩效：(A)眼球跟踪，以衡量在拾取重要视觉信息方面的进步；(B)习惯化，以确定对物体统一性的感知，并确定对可用视觉信息的敏感程度。这些实验的短期目标是在经典的先天-后天辩论的背景下阐明基本的发展机制。长期目标是阐明一个更大的问题，即知识是如何在人类中获得和构建的，感知技能如何影响知识的获取和构建，以及如何最好地描述早期发展。在未来，这样的理解可能有助于制定一些发育障碍的诊断和治疗方案。

Ten experiments investigate the early development, in human infants, of perception of the unity of partly occluded surfaces. These experiments focus primarily on processes by which infants come to perceive objects by testing predictions drawn from an information-processing viewpoint. This perspective stresses the prior necessity of appropriate visual skills to perception of object segregation, and a time of experience viewing objects in full view and under conditions of occlusion. This experience precipitates a more thorough understanding of objects in general (the sensitivity-first hypothesis). The experiments follow a similar strategy: explorations of individual differences performance in both basic visual processing and object perception tasks. Because of the central place of motion, depth, and edge orientation in object perception, the experiments concentrate on the roles of these three cues. Performance is assessed with two methods: (a) eye tracking, to measure improvements in pickup of important visual information, and (b) habituation, both to ascertain perception of object unity and to determine the extent of sensitivity to available visual information. The short-term objectives of the experiments are to elucidate fundamental developmental mechanisms in the context of the classic nature-nurture debate. The long term goals are to shed light on the larger question of how knowledge is acquired and structured in the human, how perceptual skills impact knowledge acquisition and structure, and how to best characterize early development. In the future, such understanding may aid in the formulation of diagnostics and treatments for some developmental disorders.