Origins of Object Knowledge

描述（由申请人提供）：12个实验研究了人类婴儿对部分闭塞表面的整体性感知的早期发育。实验集中在个体发育过程中的时间，当有可能是视觉敏感的信息指定对象属性的证据，但有限的能力，感知闭塞，观察实时过程的目标，通过该过程，婴儿组装成一个连贯的整体刺激的可见部分。这种方法规定，发病的敏感性的运动和方向信息，发展的oculabulary系统，并经历观看对象的闭塞和disocclusion，发挥直接的，基础性的作用，在个体发育的对象感知。也就是说，有一个假设的时期，2到4个月大，在此期间，婴儿开始使用新出现的视觉技能来准确地感知物体。实验遵循类似的策略：探索个体和群体的差异，在基本的视觉处理技能和知觉的统一性，部分闭塞的表面。婴儿的知觉用两种方法来评估：（a）记录眼球运动，以测量在获取重要视觉信息方面的改善，和（B）习惯化/去习惯化，以确定对物体整体的知觉以及确定对可用视觉信息的敏感程度。预计这种方法提供的个体差异的详细分析提供了机会，视觉技能和对象知识的出现异常敏感的措施。本提案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。长期目标是阐明更大的问题，即人类如何获得和构建知识，以及感知技能如何影响知识的获得和结构。在未来，这种理解可能有助于制定诊断和治疗某些发育障碍。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Twelve experiments investigate the early development, in human infants, of perception of the unity of partly occluded surfaces. The experiments focus on a time during ontogeny when there may be evidence of visual sensitivity to information specifying object properties, but limited ability to perceive occlusion, with the goal of observing real-time processes by which the infant assembles visible parts of a stimulus into a coherent whole. This approach stipulates that onset of sensitivity to motion and orientation information, development of the oculomotor system, and experience viewing objects undergoing occlusion and disocclusion, play a direct, foundational role in the ontogeny of object perception. That is, there is an hypothesized period, 2 to 4 months of age, during which infants come to use newly-emerged visual skills to perceive objects accurately. The experiments follow a similar strategy: explorations of individual and group differences in both basic visual processing skills and perception of the unity of partly occluded surfaces. Infant perception is assessed with two methods: (a) recording of eye movements, to measure improvements in pickup of important visual .information, and (b) habituation/dishabituation, to ascertain perception of object unity as well as to determine the extent of sensitivity to available visual information. It is expected that the detailed analysis of individual differences afforded by this approach provide the opportunity for exceptionally sensitive measures of the emergence of visual skills and object knowledge. The short-term objectives of the present proposal 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, and how perceptual skills impact knowledge acquisition and structure. In the future, such understanding may aid in the formulation of diagnostics and treatments for some developmental disorders.