Long trajectory for the development of sensitivity to global and biological motion

Abstract

We used a staircase procedure to test sensitivity to (1) global motion in random-dot kinematograms moving at 4° and 18° s(-1) and (2) biological motion. Thresholds were defined as (1) the minimum percentage of signal dots (i.e. the maximum percentage of noise dots) necessary for accurate discrimination of upward versus downward motion or (2) the maximum percentage of noise dots tolerated for accurate discrimination of biological from non-biological motion. Subjects were adults and children aged 6-8, 9-11, and 12-14 years (n = 20 per group). Contrary to earlier research, results revealed a similar, long developmental trajectory for sensitivity to global motion at both slower and faster speeds and for biological motion. Thresholds for all three tasks improved monotonically between 6 and 14 years of age, at which point they were adult-like. The results suggest that the extrastriate mechanisms that integrate local motion cues over time and space take many years to mature.

Global Motion Perception in 2-Year-Old Children: A Method for Psychophysical Assessment and Relationships With Clinical Measures of Visual Function

“…Finally, studies that also included adult observers produced mean adult thresholds of 20% coherence for preferential looking paradigms, 9,30,32 10% for OKR-based methods, 30,51 and 10% for behavioral responses. [34][35][36]64 However, as is evident from the variability in Figure 6, these comparisons should be interpreted with caution. In particular, the stimulus parameters and threshold criteria (i.e., whether thresholds reflect 50%, 63%, or 75% correct) differ across studies, which may lead to variations in absolute threshold (see Appendix for further details).…”

“…9,10,[33][34][35][36] However, the development of global motion perception in early childhood is not well understood and currently no data are available for children between the ages of 7 months and 3.5 years. This may be due to the difficulties involved in measuring visual function in children of this age.…”

Concurrent Investigation of Global Motion and Form Processing in Amblyopia: An Equivalent Noise Approach

“…23 For example, some studies reported that the global motion processing mechanisms follow a long and protracted developmental pattern extending beyond 14 years. [51][52][53] However, there are other studies reporting a similar maturation age for both global form and motion processing. 54,55 Recent studies question the generalizability of dorsal stream vulnerability in neurologic developmental disorders.…”

Sensitive periods for the functional specialization of the neural system for human face processing

“…The behavioral restoration of both basic (2) and more complex visual functions (6)(7)(8), as well as multisensory processes (7,9,10), have been studied in this population. For example, face detection (2) and the processing of biological motion (11) have been found to be largely unaffected by periods of early visual deprivation lasting for a few months. By contrast, visual functions that rely on an automatic binding of visual features seem to be permanently impaired by short periods of visual deprivation, including configural face processing (6), the ability to recognize faces from different perspectives (7,12), and the detection of illusory contours (8).…”