The visual search of an illusory figure: a comparison between 6-month-old infants and adults

The aim of the present study was to investigate how perceptual binding and selective attention operate during infants' and adults' visual search of an illusory figure. An eye-tracker system was used to test adults and infants in two conditions: illusory and non-illusory (real). In the illusory condition, a Kanizsa triangle was embedded among distractor pacmen which did not generate illusory contours. In the non-illusory condition, a real triangle was included in the same pacmen's display. The results showed that adults detected both the Kanizsa and the real figure automatically and without focal attention (experiment 1). In contrast, 6-month-old infants showed a pop-out effect only for the real figure (experiment 2). The failure of the illusory figure to trigger infants' attention was not due to infants' inability to perceive the illusory figure per se, as infants preferred the illusory figure over a non-illusory control stimulus in a classical preferential-looking task (experiment 3). Overall, these findings indicate that the illusory Kanizsa triangle triggers visual attention in adults, but not in infants, supporting evidence that at 6 months of age the binding processes involved in the perception of a Kanizsa figure do not operate in an adult-like manner.