Changing visual preferences in human infancy: evidence from texture segmentation and visual search

Ruxandra Sireteanu

Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research and Johann Wolfegana Goethe-University, Germany

The visual repertoire of the human infant undergoes dramatic qualitative changes during the transition from infancy to toddlerhood. In a texture segmentation task, 2-month-old infants orient reliably towards a target containing larger blobs, but they do not show a reliable orientation towards a target containing smaller blobs or a target defined by an orientation contrast until the end of the first year of age. In a visual search task, 2-month-olds orient reliably towards a single item if this item is larger or darker than the distracting items, but not if it is brighter or if it differs in orientation from the distracting items. The infants also prefer the side of a display containing an array of repetitive items (closed circles, open squares with aligned line endings) over the side of the display containing a single deviating item (a single open circle or a complete square). Transition from the infantile to the adult-like pattern of preferences occurs around the end of the first year of life. These results do not depend on the spatial frequency content of the patterns. Taken together, these results suggest that, during the end of the first postnatal year, the infant brain undergoes substantial remodeling.