The memorability and discriminability of primitive perceptual units in infancy

Three-month-olds were operantly trained to kick to move a block mobile that displayed a horizontal and a vertical line ("textons") arranged as L, T, or + on each side. Delayed recognition was tested either 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9 days later with either the same or a different display. Infants failed to discriminate between Ls and Ts after delays longer than 1 hr but discriminated both from +s, which contains an additional texton (the line crossing), after delays as long as 7 days but not 9. Also, they remembered +s longer than Ls and Ts. These data indicate that the same primitive perceptual units that mediate adult texture segregation are differentially discriminated and differentially memorable in early infancy.