The Evolution of Perceptual Structures
Éliane Vurpillot, Jerome S. Bruner, Paul Fraisse · 2018
Figure-ground discrimination can be demonstrated at birth; the factor of uniform destiny appears to be operative at 5 weeks, and those of proximity and continuity somewhat later around the age of 6 months. Visual stimuli are therefore perceptually organised by the infant by the second half of the first year of life. For the child of 6 to 8 years the perceptual structures have lost much of their rigidity; the child of this age can break these structures down into parts, abstract certain of their characteristics and attend to one part whilst disregarding the others. To the present writer, who considers perception as a form of knowledge, the search for a precise boundary between what is perceptual and what is not is a pseudo-problem. The difficulty of the puzzle is due to the fact that the object to be found coincides with none of the units in which the drawing as a whole is organised perceptually.