Problem of development of Gestalt perception in developmental psychology

Abstract

The majority of studies devoted to child visual perception suggest that child spontaneous orientation at an integral form of an object emerges at about 6–7 years of age and gradually strengthens up to adolescence. Simultaneously their capacity to perceive local parts also grows within the childhood. Parallel and heterochronic maturation of these relatively independent mechanisms leads to great data scatter in behavioral studies of child integral perception. Besides, it brings forth the acute problem of content and ecology validity of experimental methods of its study. The genuine authors’ study suggests the non-directive approach to evidence of child tendency to integral perception in available activity in preschool age, based on analyses of quality of their mistakes in recognizing the fragmented images of real objects. Mechanisms of age-related development of Gestalt perception are discussed in regard to maturation of association cortex of the right hemisphere and inhibitory interhemispheric links through callosum.

Keywords

• gestalt perception
• perceptual grouping
• priority of global form
• age-related development
• spatial frequency
• selective attention
• functional interhemispheric asymmetry