December 2, 2003 at 1:00pm
Psychology Room 101, Busch Campus
Dr. Scott Johnson
New York University, Department of Psychology
"Origins of Object Knowledge"
Infants are born with no experience of patterned visual input, yet within several months after birth they provide evidence of veridical perception of many objects and events they see, including events in which objects become hidden from view. The ability to form object representations is one of the most fundamental tasks accomplished by the visual system, yet little is known about precise mechanisms of how this comes to be. This talk will examine traditional and more recent theoretical accounts of the development of object knowledge, and I will present new evidence suggesting that the developmental origins of object knowledge are rooted in initial visual preferences combined with an increasing facility at integrating information across time and space. I will also sketch out some possible new research directions aimed at elucidating developments in cortical structures that support veridical object percepts.