Origin of Form Perception Robert

¶ … Origin of Form Perception

Robert L. Fantz's article in Scientific American (1961) delves into the subject of how to study the progress an infant makes in terms of its cognitive development -- specially, what the child perceives when it perceives things -- and why does it perceive what it perceives. The idea behind the research discussion is that infants clearly don't perceive much when first they arrive out of the womb -- but what exactly are their perceptual skills, and what forms are they able to perceive? Previous research showed that infants do not (or cannot) perceive form, but Fantz doubted that and set out to learn more because he believed infants do indeed perceive form and shape.

Originally Fantz's research utilized recently hatched chicks, but later he turned to primate infants and introduced a method called "a looking chamber" which was basically a bassinette placed inside a large box. The idea is that an infant chimp (chimps are the primates that most closely resemble human beings' behaviors) would stare at objects presented by the researchers. What would they stare at and how long would they stare at it? That was the pertinent question going into to the research. Numerous items were placed within viewing range of the chimps (that were between 1-week-old and 15 weeks of age); those objects included a) an oval with a human face; b) an oval with a "face jumbled up"; c) a cross; d) triangles; "solid and textured disks; e) and spheres of various textures.

The objects were presented within viewing range of the chimps; various combinations were employed for various time periods; the idea was for the researcher to note the exact amount of time the chimp spent staring at the variety of objects. Those objects that the baby chimps stared at longer than others were the "preferred" objects. The initial finding that Fantz reports was that babies of all ages possess the ability "to perceive and discriminate among diverse forms" (Fantz p. 38). These findings provide "power evidence" for Fantz's hypothesis, the article asserts.

What fascinated the chimps the most among the various items / objects that were placed within their immediate proximity? The infants seem to gravitate visually to the most complex forms. For example, they stared at a bull's eye, a checkerboard and items with stripes; and these items were "preferred" no matter how many weeks old the chimp was. So that settled (it seemed) the issue of whether or not an infant has form perception at birth -- infants do indeed have that ability, the study indicated.

Unlike the chicks' ability to perceive form -- which they do instinctively because their DNA informs them that they need food, nourishment -- human infants have to depend on other humans to care for them. So the Fantz team of researchers -- to take the case deeper into understanding -- presented a total of 49 human infants with three "identical sized" oval disks (p. 39). The infants were between 4 days and 6 months. One of the ovals had the features of a human face, another had those features jumbled up in a weird fashion, and the third had just a patch of black painted on the upper third of the oval. To no one's surprise, the human babies stared "intently" for long periods of time at the oval with the human face on it -- and regardless of age, all the infants focused most on the face oval.