Seven-month-old infants detect symmetrical structures in multi-featured abstract visual patterns

Abstract

The present study investigated 7-month-old infants’ ability to perceive structural symmetry in mosaic-like abstract visual patterns. We examined infants’ (n = 98) spontaneous looking behaviour to mosaic-like sequences with symmetrical and asymmetrical structures. Sequences were composed of square tiles from two categories that differed in their colour scheme and internal shape. We manipulated sequence length (3 or 5 tiles) and abstractness of the symmetry (token vs. category level). The 7-month-olds discriminated structurally symmetrical from asymmetrical mosaics in the first half of the test phase (first 8 trials). Sequence length, level of symmetry, or number of unique tiles per sequence did not significantly modulate infants’ looking behaviour. These results suggest that very young infants detect differences in structural symmetry in multi-featured visual patterns.