Abstract
There exists controversy in the current literature about the specific period of time when the integration of low-level perceptual elements reaches maturity in typically-developing child populations. Visual illusions have been employed in recent research and these studies suggest that perceptual integration in children reaches adult levels anywhere between the ages of 5-10 years. However, given that specific measurement techniques have failed to be controlled for, in an attempt to elucidate the controversy surrounding perceptual development we employed a visual illusion paradigm which comprised of both binary (static) and quantifiable (dynamic) components of commonly used Ebbinghaus illusion perceptual tasks. A total of 72 individuals, including four child groups (4-5, 6-7, 8-9 and 10-11 years) and an adult cohort, participated in the current study. Two main trends were revealed, the influence of age and the influence of comparator circle starting size on size-matching ability. First, 4-5 year olds elicited increased susceptibility to the static task and increased variability in the dynamic task, while 10-11 year olds displayed intermediate levels of susceptibility and variability respectively, compared to other child groups and their adult counterparts. In addition, the dynamic task revealed that when asked to decrease the comparator circle size (rather than increase), all participants overestimated target size. Overall, it is suggested that perceptual development does not follow a linear progression. The adoption of a universally-accepted perceptual measure is required in order to provide a more detailed understanding of perceptual development in children which can then be applied to populations which exhibit perceptual impairment.
