Poster #34 - Increased Looking and More Reactive Facial Expressions to Impossible Figures in Early Infancy

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Previous studies demonstrated that infants look longer at pictures of impossible objects relative to possible ones. However, we still do not have a clear understanding of infants’ conceptual knowledge of global coherence and structural possibility. Does longer looking at impossible displays indicate a violation of infants’ inherent expectations about real objects and 3D coherence? Or does it reflect increased perceptual processing?

Oftentimes, studies simply assume that infants are surprised when they look longer at a stimulus. Here, we tested the assumption that longer looking toward one display may be driven by increased perceptual processing in response to a violation in spatial geometry and 3D object coherence. This is an important step toward understanding why infants are looking longer, and may lead to insight on what they are “thinking” when they do so.

Our goal was to determine if increased looking toward impossible figures co-occurred with facial expressions of surprise and puzzlement. Based on Izard, Ekman, and Oster’s facial affective coding schemes, these are universal responses typically consisting of raised eyebrows, widened eyes, etc. Hence, such expressions could be used to make inferences about infants’ internal mental processing of coherent vs. incoherent objects. Therefore, facial expressions of surprise toward impossible relative to possible objects may reflect increased perceptual processing associated with viewing impossible figures.

There were 6 test trials with 3 presentations of each display type alternating in sequence. Order was counterbalanced across infants (e.g., A-B-A-B-A-B, B-A-B-A-B-A). We used an infant-controlled looking procedure. An observer, who could see the infant but was blind to the stimulus conditions, pressed a button to record looking behavior and released when the infant looked away. Test sessions were digitally recorded and coded offline for facial expressions using pencil and paper. Coders were also blind to stimulus conditions and hypotheses.

We predicted that infants would display more facial expressions consistent with “surprise” when viewing impossible objects relative to possible ones. Indeed, impossible cubes evoked both longer looking times (p < .001) and more reactive expressions overall (p < .001) primarily derived from increased raised eyebrows and widened eyes (p < .01) in the majority of infants. Results also revealed that infants in the neutral perceptual control group, who viewed simple line junction stimuli in the absence of binding contours, showed no reliable differences in looking times or in observed facial expressions toward either display type.

Infants clearly make a perceptual distinction between possible objects and their impossible counterparts consisting of spatially inconsistent arrangement of lines that render an object structurally incoherent. Increased looking accompanied by facial expressions associated with surprise and puzzlement when viewing impossible objects relative to possible ones may be indicative of increased information processing and infants’ expectations about real 3D objects. This effect is driven by detecting an anomalous region that is spatially irreconcilable with other parts of the object, thus rendering it incoherent in three dimensions. This work sheds light on infants’ increasing understanding of 3D objects in the world and the development of mental representations of object coherence.

Authors

• Christina Krause, SUNY New Paltz
  Non-Presenting Author

• Danielle Longo, SUNY New Paltz
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Shuwairi, State University of New York at New Paltz
  Presenting Author