Development of the Visual Analysis of Form and Contour

A common approach to investigating visual form processing is through studying responses to visual stimuli that comprise illusory contours. Such stimuli induce contours where none exist physically and thus reveal the constructive nature of visual perception and the conditions that engender it. The present work used IC stimuli to study the development of visual form detection and extraction in infants and adults.

Infant and adult participants viewed square stimulus forms with either real or illusory contours, while their looking behavior was measured with an eye tracker. Fixations of the stimuli were coded by region, distinguishing between the contours of the forms and within the forms themselves. Fixations were summed by region, and fixations on forms were interpreted to index the detection of coherent, whole forms. Fixations on contours (real and illusory) were interpreted to index the extraction of form edges.

Total form fixations differed by age. For real contours, fixations by infants exceeded those by adults; when contours were illusory, adult fixations were greater than those of infants. Contour fixations were similar between ages. Infants and adults both looked more at contours when illusory than when real.

Together, the results provide new conclusions about change and continuity in the visual analysis of form and contour. The results suggest that the visual detection and binding of simple form structure appears to develop between infancy and adulthood. However, the exploration of contours that support the extraction of form contours from backgrounds appears to change little between infancy and adulthood.