Object boundaries influence toddlers' performance in a search task
Kristin Shutts1, Rachel Keen, Elizabeth S Spelke
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. shutts@fas.harvard.edu
Insights
Toddlers
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Visual Perception
- Object Permanence
Background:
- Young children struggle with object search tasks when a barrier partially obscures the object.
- Adults' object-directed attention is influenced by object boundaries and proximity.
- Understanding early object representation is key to cognitive development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how object boundaries and proximity affect toddlers' search for hidden objects.
- To explore parallels between toddlers' and adults' object-directed attention.
- To determine if visible object parts or landmarks better guide toddlers' search.
Main Methods:
- Four experiments tested toddlers' search for a hidden toy car behind an occluding panel.
- Varied the visibility and proximity of object parts and barriers.
- Measured search performance based on correct object location identification.
Main Results:
- Toddlers performed near ceiling when a visible part was close to the hidden car body.
- Performance was below ceiling when a visible part was further away.
- Search was at chance when only a separate barrier was visible.
Conclusions:
- Toddlers' hidden object search is significantly influenced by the proximity of visible object parts.
- Findings suggest early parallels in object representation and attention between toddlers and adults.
- Object proximity, not landmark proximity, guides toddlers' attention to hidden objects.
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that young children have difficulty searching for a hidden object whose location depends on the position of a partly visible physical barrier. Across four experiments, we tested whether children's search errors are affected by two variables that influence adults' object-directed attention: object boundaries and proximity relations. Toddlers searched for a car that rolled down a ramp behind an occluding panel and stopped on contact with a barrier. The car's location on each trial depended on the placement of the barrier behind one of two doors in the panel. In Experiment 1, when a part of the car (a pompom on an antenna) was visible at the same distance from the object as the barrier wall in past research, search performance was above chance but below ceiling. In Experiments 2 and 3, when the visible part was close to the hidden body of the car and could be seen through one of two windows in the doors of the occluding panel, performance was near ceiling. In Experiment 4, when only the barrier was visible through one of the same windows, performance was at chance. Toddlers' search for a hidden object therefore is affected by the proximity of a visible part of the object, though not by the proximity of a separate visible landmark. These findings suggest a parallel between the object representations of young children and those of adults, whose attention is directed to objects and spreads in a gradient-like fashion within an object.
