Infants’ ability to extract three-dimensional shape from coherent motion

Our capacity to perceive three-dimensional (3D) object structure from two-dimensional (2D) retinal input is fundamental to object perception. The present research examined infants’ ability to extract 3D form from structure-from-motion (SFM) displays using a familiarization/visual-paired-comparison paradigm. In SFM displays dots are projected onto the surfaces of a shape that rotates around a 3D axis and it is the coherent structure of the dots’ motion that gives rise to the percept of shape. Infants mean age 4.5 and 9 months were familiarized to a SFM display (e.g., cylinder); in test they were presented the familiar SFM display paired with a novel SFM display (e.g., cube). Infants in both age groups displayed a significant preference for the novel SFM test display. These results are consistent with those obtained previously using habituation paradigms and provide converging evidence for infants’ early emerging capacity to use coherent motion – in the absence of figural information – as a cue to depth structure. In addition, these results demonstrate that infants’ ability to extract 3D shape from coherent motion can be successfully assessed with a neuroimaging-friendly protocol, which was one of the goals of this study.