Attention to quantitative and configural properties of abstract visual patterns by children and adults

Students in grades 2, 4, 6, and college sorted abstract visual patterns that varied both in amount of contour and in the type of visual organization (unstructured, simple symmetries, multiple symmetries, and rotational organization). The subjects were told to put the patterns into rows so that all the patterns in a row were "alike in some way," with no limits placed either on the number of rows or on the number of patterns in a row. Second graders sorted mainly on the basis of amount of contour and less so with reference to multiple types of visual organization. Fourth and sixth graders used contour as a sorting criterion less than second graders; moreover, they sorted with reference to all types of visual structure. As a group, college students sorted exclusively on the basis of structure. The data were taken as evidence that children attend to both amount of contour and visual organization, but that attention to visual structure increases with age.