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Development of local-global preference in vision and haptics
Chiara Tortelli1,2, Irene Senna3,4, Paola Binda1,5
1Department of Translational Research on New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
Journal of Vision
|April 25, 2023
Summary
Children and adults show similar visual and haptic perception of global shapes as they age. However, larger local elements can disrupt this global preference, especially in touch.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Understanding how humans perceive hierarchical stimuli is crucial for cognitive and developmental science.
- Local-global processing is a fundamental aspect of perception, varying across sensory modalities and age groups.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the developmental trajectory of local-global preference in vision and haptics.
- To examine how stimulus characteristics, specifically local element size, influence this preference across sensory modalities and age.
Main Methods:
- A similarity judgment task was administered to neurotypical individuals aged six to adulthood.
- Participants evaluated hierarchical visual and haptic stimuli composed of local elements forming a global shape.
- Independent variables included local element size and global configuration (manipulated via element density).
Main Results:
- The size of local elements significantly modulated age and modality effects on global preference.
- Smaller local elements led to increased global responses with age, similar across vision and haptics.
- Larger local elements reduced or abolished global preference, particularly in haptics, irrespective of age.
Conclusions:
- Vision and haptics show a developmental convergence in global preference, becoming more similar with age.
- Stimulus properties, such as local element size, can reveal residual differences in cross-modal and individual perception.
- This research offers insights into the interplay between sensory modality, development, and hierarchical visual-haptic processing.
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