Innate and learned perceptual abilities in the newborn infant

Slater, Alan; Kirby, Rachel

doi:10.1007/s002210050548

Cited by 54 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The cortical circuits required for the orientation selectivity of individual cortical neurons are thus present very early in life and are functioning at birth more or less as in adults. These results are consistent with the perceptual studies reporting that human neonates can discriminate the orientation of static lines (e.g., Atkinson et al 1988;Slater and Kirby 1998).…”

Section: Slower Functional Development In V2supporting

confidence: 92%

Development of Temporal Response Properties and Contrast Sensitivity of V1 and V2 Neurons in Macaque Monkeys

Zheng

Zhang²,

Bai³

et al. 2007

Journal of Neurophysiology

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Smith EL 3rd, Chino YM. Development of temporal response properties and contrast sensitivity of V1 and V2 neurons in macaque monkeys. J Neurophysiol 97: 3905-3916, 2007. First published April 11, 2007 doi:10.1152/jn.01320.2006. The temporal contrast sensitivity of human infants is reduced compared to that of adults. It is not known which neural structures of our visual brain sets limits on the early maturation of temporal vision. In this study we investigated how individual neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) and visual area 2 (V2) of infant monkeys respond to temporal modulation of spatially optimized grating stimuli and a range of stimulus contrasts. As early as 2 wk of age, V1 and V2 neurons exhibited band-pass temporal frequency tuning. However, the optimal temporal frequency and temporal resolution of V1 neurons were much lower in 2-and 4-wk-old infants than in 8-wk-old infants or adults. V2 neurons of 8-wk-old monkeys had significantly lower optimal temporal frequencies and resolutions than those of adults. Onset latency was longer in V1 at 2 and 4 wk of age and was slower in V2 even at 8 wk of age than in adults. Contrast threshold of V1 and V2 neurons was substantially higher in 2-and 4-wk-old infants but became adultlike by 8 wk of age. For the first 4 wk of life, responses to high-contrast stimuli saturated more readily in V2. The present results suggest that although the early development of temporal vision and contrast sensitivity may largely depend on the functional maturation of precortical structures, it is also likely to be limited by immaturities that are unique to V1 and V2.

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Section: Slower Functional Development In V2supporting

confidence: 92%

Development of Temporal Response Properties and Contrast Sensitivity of V1 and V2 Neurons in Macaque Monkeys

Zheng

Zhang²,

Bai³

et al. 2007

Journal of Neurophysiology

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“…2 Looking time paradigms are used with young infants because perceptual and oculomotor maturation occurs more quickly and uniformly than does gross and fine motor maturation, and thus looking times are more a reliable index of attentional patterns early in ontogeny [4,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Three-month-olds were tested because previous findings suggest that infants of this age have adequate perceptual and oculomotor maturity for the current task [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. 3 All sounds were played through a set of centrally located speakers behind the back curtain of the stage.…”

Section: Endnotesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three-month-old human infants use vocal cues of body size

et al. 2017

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Differences in vocal fundamental (F 0 ) and average formant (F n ) frequencies covary with body size in most terrestrial mammals, such that larger organisms tend to produce lower frequency sounds than smaller organisms, both between species and also across different sex and life-stage morphs within species. Here we examined whether three-month-old human infants are sensitive to the relationship between body size and sound frequencies. Using a violation-of-expectation paradigm, we found that infants looked longer at stimuli inconsistent with the relationship-that is, a smaller organism producing lower frequency sounds, and a larger organism producing higher frequency sounds-than at stimuli that were consistent with it. This effect was stronger for fundamental frequency than it was for average formant frequency. These results suggest that by three months of age, human infants are already sensitive to the biologically relevant covariation between vocalization frequencies and visual cues to body size. This ability may be a consequence of developmental adaptations for building a phenotype capable of identifying and representing an organism's size, sex and life-stage.

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“…Previously, it has been assumed that there is a fixed, innate system for orienting, before an adult-like face detection and discrimination system matures (Johnson and Morton 1991) Initially, the primitive, subcortical orientation system is in control, but as the other one matures it gradually takes over. This approach fails to explain, among other things, why newborns learn to discriminate individual faces (Slater and Kirby 1998). Bednar and Miikkulainen (2003) propose that the orientation function is shaped in an early stage based on spontaneous activity in the infant's brain.…”

Section: Spontaneous Activitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Chaos breeds autonomy: connectionist design between bias and baby-sitting

Leeuwen

2007

Cogn Process

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In connectionism and its offshoots, models acquire functionality through externally controlled learning schedules. This undermines the claim of these models to autonomy. Providing these models with intrinsic biases is not a solution, as it makes their function dependent on design assumptions. Between these two alternatives, there is room for approaches based on spontaneous self-organization. Structural reorganization in adaptation to spontaneous activity is a well-known phenomenon in neural development. It is proposed here as a way to prepare connectionist models for learning and enhance the autonomy of these models.

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Innate and learned perceptual abilities in the newborn infant

Cited by 54 publications

References 9 publications

Development of Temporal Response Properties and Contrast Sensitivity of V1 and V2 Neurons in Macaque Monkeys

Development of Temporal Response Properties and Contrast Sensitivity of V1 and V2 Neurons in Macaque Monkeys

Three-month-old human infants use vocal cues of body size

Chaos breeds autonomy: connectionist design between bias and baby-sitting

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