Infants' Sensitivity to Accretion and Deletion of Texture as Information for Depth at an Edge

Abstract

Based on Gibson''s hypothesis that accretion and deletion of texture in the optic array provides unambiguous information for the spatial layout of surfaces, evidence of early responsiveness to this information was sought with infant subjects. 5- and 7-mo.-olds viewing computer-generated random-dot displays in which accretion and deletion of texture provided the only information for contours, specifying either a foreground surface moving in front of and occluding a moving background surface or 2 partially overlapping surfaces. The infants in both age groups showed significant preferences to reach for the apparently nearer regions in the displays. Previous research has shown that infants reached more frequently for the nearer of 2 surfaces; 5- and 7-mo.-olds were sensitive to accretion and deletion of texture as information for the spatial layout of surfaces.