development of visual processing

Question 1

Salapetek, 1975? visual capacities in neonates

Answer 1

• babies are sensitive to light
• can detect movement
• vis. acuity=20/600
• vis. orienting; relatively mature subcortical pathway to SC
• very low spatial frequency but can see bold patterns that are high in contrast

Question 2

Atkinson, 1984? visual pathways in neonates

Answer 2

newborn vision completely controlled by subcortical/SC Pathway…v mature at birth
cortical pathway begins to develop at 2 months, requires visual exposure in order to mature

Question 3

Weizkrants, 1974? blindsight

Answer 3

lesion to V1 lead to cortical blindess
lack of awareness more so than an inability to discriminate or detect what’s out there
gives insight into what babies see as their V1 is underdeveloped when born

Question 4

Pegna, 2005? blindsight

Answer 4

blindsight patients showed sensitivity to fearful expressions of faces, did not discriminate the sex of faces, scrambled vs. in tact faces

Question 5

Schaffer, 1985? eye movements in neonates

Answer 5

eye movements are controlled by SC/ subcortical pathway
babies can accurately look at objects and scan around edges of objects at 2 months old
emergence of dev of cortical pathway to LGN, configuration of parts of objects into a whole object

Question 6

Frantz, 1961? perception in neonates

Answer 6

1) babies like symmetry

2) babies like to look at what they find more complex, as this develops their vis system

Question 7

Banks and Ginsburg, 1985? contrast to Frantz

Answer 7

babies prefer to look at what they see well (contrast to Frantz)

Question 8

Goren, 1975? face perception

Answer 8

can discriminate face-like configurations over scrambled

Question 9

Bushnell, 1989? face perception

Answer 9

babies prefer to look at familiar faces than non familiar faces

Question 10

Rodman, 1993?

Answer 10

face-sensitive neurons present in macaque monkeys at 2months old

Question 11

Sugita, 2008? implicit face perception abilities

Answer 11

monkeys who didn’t have full exposure to faces found it harder to disseminate between faces that they were not exposed to (monkey faces)
- infants possess some info about characteristics of faces, but ability to do task well is highly dependent on exposure to faces during infancy!

Question 12

Gomez, 2017? emergence of face perception

Answer 12

no evidence to suggest that theres a distinction between processing of faces and processing of scenes.
differences emerge later in brain, and emerges as a consequence of neural proliferation and not pruning!

Question 13

Hearing, 2012? emergence of face perception

Answer 13

gradual improvement in perception of upright faces from ages 6-12 years in accuracy.

Question 14

Gibson’s “visual cliff”, 1960?

Answer 14

most infants between 6-14months would not crawl over apparent cliff

Question 15

Campos, 1970? depth perception

Answer 15

increase in heart rate when placed on steep instead of shallow side of cliff

Question 16

Hurlbert, 2007? colour perception in neonates

Answer 16

prefs for saturation and lightness did not vary
- but hue prefs differ significantly between males and females
- females preference peaks at reddish-purple region
-males preference peaks at green-blue region (less pronounced)
…arises from sex-specific functional specialisations; female brains are specialised from an evolutionary perspective, hunter-gatherer activities: ripeness or staleness of fruit, indicators of health on offspring

Question 17

Sprengelmeyer, 2009? hormonal link to face perception

Answer 17

cuteness discrimination task

• involvement of female reproductive hormones in levels of reported cuteness of babies
• oestrogen, progesterone levels drop with age
• pill users have artificially raised hormone levels