STIMULUS COMPLEXITY AS A DETERMINANT OF VISUAL ATTENTION IN INFANTS

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with investigating the extent to which the variable of complexity deter mines visual attention in infants. It was shown that infants looked longer at patterns with a larger number of rparts”, that is, a larger number of enclosed, white, rectangular spaces. This was found to be the case regardless of whether the parts were arranged regularly or irregularly, and regardless of the number of lines or the number of right angled crossings in the patterns. The same stimulus patterns were then shown to adults to be judged for complexity in order to obtain an independent psychological measure of complexity. The results showed that there was little overall agreement between infants’ looking times and adults’ ratings of complexity.