Infant development of configural object processing in visual and visual-haptic contexts

Infants’ visual processing of objects is characterised by a developmental trend from a predominantly analytical to a configural processing mode. In two studies with 6- and 8-month-old infants, we sought to replicate this finding in a purely visual condition (inspecting objects), and to examine how far redundant visual-haptic information present in a visual-haptic condition influences the processing mode. Infants were familiarized with two objects differing in three dimensions (texture, size and shape). At test, infants were presented with a familiar object, a switch object consisting of a recombination of familiar dimensions, and a novel object, and looking times were measured. Results indicate a transition from analytical processing at 6 months to configural processing at 8 months in the visual condition. In the visual-haptic condition, both age-groups displayed configural processing. Thus, redundant visual-haptic information seems to enhance object processing.