Seven-month-old infants detect symmetrical structures in multi-featured abstract visual patterns

Abstract

The present study investigated 7-month-old infants' ability to perceive structural symmetry in mosaic-like abstract visual patterns. We examined infants' (n = 98) spontaneous looking behaviour to mosaic-like sequences with symmetrical and asymmetrical structures. Sequences were composed of square tiles from two categories that differed in their colour scheme and internal shape. We manipulated sequence length (3 or 5 tiles) and abstractness of the symmetry (token vs. category level). The 7-month-olds discriminated structurally symmetrical from asymmetrical mosaics in the first half of the test phase (first 8 trials). Sequence length, level of symmetry, or number of unique tiles per sequence did not significantly modulate infants' looking behaviour. These results suggest that very young infants detect differences in structural symmetry in multi-featured visual patterns.

Fig 1. Stimuli.

The upper panel depicts a sample of the 18 tiles used to create the mosaics, 9 per category (A or B). The middle panel depicts a sample of the mosaic-like sequences with token-level structural symmetries, and the lower panel of the mosaics with category-level structural symmetries.

Fig 2. Procedure of the test.

The study started with a pre-test trial in order to engage infants’ attention. Infants then saw a total of 8 structurally symmetrical and 8 structurally asymmetrical sequences, which were intermixed and preceded by an attention getter. A post-test trial identical to the pre-test trial ended the study.

Fig 3. Looking time results.

The upper bar plot shows infants’ mean looking times to the mosaics: during the 16 trials (left), in the first 8 trials (centre), and in the last 8 trials (right). Looking times in all 4 conditions (i.e. to 3- and 5-tiled mosaics, with token- and category-level structural symmetry) are collapsed. The y-axis displays the infants’ looking times in seconds. Dark blue bars depict mean looking times to structurally symmetrical mosaics, while light aquamarine bars display mean looking times to structurally asymmetrical mosaics. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean, and statistically significant comparisons are marked with an asterisk. The lower box-and-whisker plot depicts the distribution of infants’ mean looking times per condition during the first 8 trials.