Abstract
Adults' and children's recognition of additions to or deletions from scenes and variables affecting recognition of the salience, complexity, and unnaturalness of the alterations were studied. Stimuli were 8 pictures. Features were added to half of them, and features deleted from the other half. In another set of stimuli, the opposite types of alterations were made to the two groups of photographs. Subjects were shown the altered and unaltered pictures in pairs and asked if they were the same or not. Analysis showed that superiority of recognition for additions over deletions was not always observed because of an interaction with the salience of an item. The salience of an item more accurately predicted the percent recognition by adults than its complexity or unnaturalness. Although there were differences in percent recognition according to the type of alteration, the salience of items was nearly the same for adults and children. Similarities and differences in recognition by children and adults may be attributed to development.
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