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Three Months-Old' Preferences for Biological Motion Configuration and Its Subsequent Decline
Isabel C Lisboa1,2, Daniel M Basso3, Jorge A Santos2,4,5
1Psychology Research Centre (CiPsi), School of Psychology, Campus de Gualtar, University of Minho, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal.
Brain Sciences
|May 28, 2022
Summary
Infants
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Perception
Background:
- Configural processing, understanding relationships between stimulus parts, is vital for social perception.
- The development of configural processing in infants for biological motion is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how infants develop the ability to perceive and prefer configural relations in biological motion.
- To examine age-related changes in infants' attention to coherent biological motion.
Main Methods:
- Two preferential looking experiments (cross-sectional and longitudinal) were conducted.
- Infants' attention was measured between a coherent point-light walker and a scrambled walker stimulus.
Main Results:
- Three-month-old infants showed a preference for the coherent walker.
- Five- and seven-month-old infants did not exhibit a significant preference.
Conclusions:
- Infant perception of biological motion changes within the first year of life.
- Developmental shifts in perceptual, attentional, and motor systems influence attention to biological motion.
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