Abstract
Previous research demonstrated that young infants can differentiate between depicted and real objects, and studies have shown that infants use a variety of similar types of manual gestures to examine such displays (DeLoache et al., 1999; Shuwairi et al., 2010; Yonas et al., 2005). Infants generally respond with exploratory actions that tend to include manual gestures appropriate for display type, i.e., grasping for real 3D objects and tapping, scratching and rubbing for depicted ones. Still, questions remain about the nature of infants conceptual understanding of depicted versus real objects. Here, we carried out a more fine-grained assessment of both the qualitative types of actions (e.g., grasping, tapping, rubbing, etc.) as well as the amount of continuous exploration toward each display type as a measure of persistence. Infants were presented with a real object (i.e., colorful, plastic kitten toy), a color photograph of that object, and a non-object pictorial control stimulus (i.e., light and dark gray patches). We evaluated the types of manual actions, frequency count of actions, and hand height of the initial reach to each of the displays. Infants responded appropriately, albeit slightly differently, to 2D and 3D stimuli they initiated more grasping to the real object relative to the picture (p <.05), and engaged in a greater number of successive actions overall toward the depicted object relative to the toy and pictorial control (p <.05). Infants clearly do not treat all surfaces and displays alike, they use appropriate types of actions and more persistent exploratory activity overall. This suggests that infants are trying to interpret depth information in the displays as well as understand the nature of pictures and how they differ from actual 3D objects.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014