Child development and the role of visual experience in the use of spatial and non-spatial features in haptic object perception.

Autor: Overvliet KE; Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany; Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: k.e.overvliet@uu.nl., Postma A; Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands., Röder B; Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany; LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad 500 034, India.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of experimental child psychology [J Exp Child Psychol] 2024 Jun; Vol. 242, pp. 105885. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Mar 11.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105885
Abstrakt: Previous work has suggested a different developmental timeline and role of visual experience for the use of spatial and non-spatial features in haptic object recognition. To investigate this conjecture, we used a haptic ambiguous odd-one-out task in which one object needed to be selected as being different from two other objects. The odd-one-out could be selected based on four characteristics: size, shape (spatial), texture, and weight (non-spatial). We tested sighted children from 4 to 12 years of age; congenitally blind, late blind, and adult participants with low vision; and normally sighted adults. Given the protracted developmental time course for spatial perception, we expected a shift from a preference for non-spatial features toward spatial features during typical development. Due to the dominant influence of vision for spatial perception, we expected congenitally blind adults to show a similar preference for non-spatial features as the youngest children. The results confirmed our first hypothesis; the 4-year-olds demonstrated a lower dominance for spatial features for object classification compared with older children and sighted adults. In contrast, our second hypothesis was not confirmed; congenitally blind adults' preferred categorization criteria were indistinguishable from those of sighted controls. These findings suggest an early development, but late maturation, of spatial processing in haptic object recognition independent of visual experience.
(Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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