Familiarity failed to enhance perceptibility of patterns (Same-Different thresholds) but did facilitate naming them (Identification thresholds). These results add to the recent accumulation of evidence showing that experience does not modify (and certainly does not create) visual impressions which are present, even in humans, from the first day's exposure to the visual world. It is by means of experience, however, that such an organism eventually comes to terms with these impressions.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
DemberW. N.Psychology of perception. New York: Holt, 1960.
2.
FantzR. L.Pattern vision in newborn infants. Science, 1963, 140, 296.
3.
HarrisC. S.Adaptation to displaced vision: Visual, motor or proprioceptive change?Science, 1963, 140, 812–813.
4.
HebbD. O.A textbook of psychology. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1958.
5.
HenleM.An experimental investigation of past experience as a determinant of visual form perception. J. exp. Psychol., 1942, 30, 1–22.
6.
HubelD. H.WieselT. H.Receptive fields of cells in striate cortex of very young, visually inexperienced kittens. J. Neurophysiol., 1963, 26, 994–1002.
7.
MelzackJ. R.The effects of early perceptual restrictions on simple visual discrimination. Science, 1962, 137, 978–979.
8.
RiesenA. H.Plasticity of behavior: Psychological aspects. In HarlowH. F.WoolseyC. N. (Eds.), Biological and biochemical bases of behavior. Madison: Univer. of Wisconsin Press, 1958. Pp. 425–450.
9.
SendenM. vSpace and sight. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960.
10.
SperryR. W.The great cerebral commissure. Scient. Amer., 1964, 210(1), 42–52.