Perception of Object Unity in Young Infants: The Roles of Motion, Depth, and Orientation

One hundred twenty-eight 4-month-old infants were habituated to one of several displays that depicted two rod pieces above and below a box. The effects of common motion, background texture, and orientation of the rod pieces on infants’ perception of unity of the partially occluded rod were examined. Infants who viewed displays in which the rod pieces were aligned and presented in front of a textured background, subsequently looked longer at a broken rod (two rod pieces separated by a gap) than at a complete rod, implying that the infants experienced the rod pieces as connected behind the box in the first display. Infants who viewed displays with no background texture, or displays in which the rod pieces were nonaligned but relatable (i.e., connected if extended behind the occluder), looked equally at the two posthabituation displays. Infants who viewed displays containing nonrelatable rod pieces looked longer at the complete rod, implying that nonrelatable edges specify disjoint objects to 4month-olds. A threshold model, stipulating that perception of object unity is supported by multiple visual cues, is proposed to account for these results. Veridical perception of motion of display elements, depth ordering, and edge orientation are necessary, but not individually sufficient, to support young infants’ perception of object unity.