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Perception

Perception

Perception is a fundamental psychological process that enables individuals to organize, interpret, and consciously experience sensory information. This process is crucial for understanding and interacting with the world around us. It includes both bottom-up and top-down processing, each playing a distinct role in how we perceive our environment.
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...

Perceptual Constancy

Perceptual Constancy

Perceptual constancy is the ability to recognize that objects remain consistent and unchanged even when their appearance varies due to changes in sensory input. There are four main types of perceptual constancy: size constancy, shape constancy, color constancy, and brightness constancy.
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...

The Nativist Approach

The Nativist Approach

The nativist approach to infant cognitive development proposes that infants are born with inherent knowledge structures that allow them to interpret the world almost immediately. This perspective contrasts with earlier developmental theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget, which emphasized a more gradual acquisition of cognitive abilities through interaction with the environment. One key concept in this approach is object permanence — the understanding that objects continue to...

Factors Affecting Perception

Factors Affecting Perception

Perception is influenced by perceptual set, context, motivation, and emotion. Perceptual set, or perceptual expectancy, refers to the tendency to perceive things in a particular way, influenced by previous experiences and expectations. This phenomenon affects the interpretation of stimuli, creating a set of mental tendencies and assumptions that impact sensory perceptions of sound, taste, touch, and sight.
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth perception is the ability to perceive objects three-dimensionally. It relies on two types of cues: binocular and monocular. Binocular cues depend on the combination of images from both eyes and how the eyes work together. Since the eyes are in slightly different positions, each eye captures a slightly different image. This disparity between images, known as binocular disparity, helps the brain interpret depth. When the brain compares these images, it determines the distance to an object.

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 24, 2025

Novel Object Exploration as a Potential Assay for Higher Order Repetitive Behaviors in Mice

Novel Object Exploration as a Potential Assay for Higher Order Repetitive Behaviors in Mice

Published on: August 20, 2016

Perceptual Novelty Drives Early Exploration in a Bottom-Up Manner.

Mengcun Gao¹, Vladimir M Sloutsky¹

¹Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.

Developmental Science

|March 4, 2025

Summary

Young children explore more due to perceptual novelty, not uncertainty. This bottom-up process drives their choices, especially when novelty is directly visible, influencing early development exploration.

Keywords:

cognitive development computational modeling decision‐making exploration‐exploitation dilemma stimulus‐driven attention

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Development
Developmental Psychology
Neuroscience

Background:

Children explore novel options more than adults.
Exploration may stem from epistemic uncertainty or novelty seeking.
Distinguishing these drivers is challenging due to their frequent co-occurrence.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the independent roles of perceptual novelty and epistemic uncertainty in children's exploration.
To determine if exploration in early childhood is driven by bottom-up novelty attraction or top-down uncertainty reduction.
To examine how cognitive control influences novelty-driven exploration.

Main Methods:

A novel n-armed bandit task was developed to decouple novelty and epistemic uncertainty.
Adults and 4- to 6-year-old children completed the task.
Decision-making was analyzed based on observable novelty and reward value.

Main Results:

Four-year-olds' choices were predominantly driven by perceptual novelty, even without epistemic uncertainty or high reward.
This novelty preference was observed only when novelty was directly perceivable, not when anticipated.
Adults and older children did not show this strong novelty bias.

Conclusions:

Perceptual novelty alone can drive significant exploration in young children (4-year-olds) via a bottom-up mechanism.
This effect is dependent on the direct observability of novelty, suggesting a role for attentional capture.
Findings highlight developmental differences in the interplay between novelty, uncertainty, and cognitive control in decision-making.