Resumen de Perceiving “Outside the Box” Occurs Early in Development: Evidence for Boundary Extension in Three- to Seven-Month-Old Infants

Paul C. Quinn, Helene Intraub

• This investigation examined whether infants display boundary extension—a tendency to remember more of a visual scene than was presented. Three- to 7-month-olds were familiarized with a photograph of a visual scene, and tested with wide-angle versus close-up views of the scene. Infants preferred the close-up, indicating that they perceived the wide angle (the one consistent with boundary extension) as more familiar. Converging experiments showed that: (a) infants did not spontaneously prefer the close-up, (b) adults did not judge the wide angle to be more similar to the familiarization stimulus, and (c) infants spontaneously preferred the close-up when the photographs depicted outline objects without backgrounds. The findings suggest that infants anticipate information that lies beyond the borders of a scene view.