When does inter-hemispheric integration of visual events emerge in infancy? A developmental study on 19- to
F Liégeois1, L Bentejac, S de Schonen
1Developmental Neurocognition Group, Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, C.N.R.S., Marseille, France.
Insights
Infants aged 19-23 months could not integrate visual information across both visual fields. Simultaneous attention and interhemispheric integration develop around 24 months of age in infants.
Area of Science:
- Developmental psychology
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Visual perception
Background:
- Infant visual attention and interhemispheric integration are crucial for cognitive development.
- Understanding the developmental trajectory of these abilities is essential for identifying developmental milestones.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the development of simultaneous attention in two visual fields and interhemispheric integration of visual information in infants.
- To determine the age at which these abilities emerge.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an operant conditioning task with schematic faces presented unilaterally or bilaterally.
- Stimuli featured identical or different eye shapes (circles, triangles).
- Participants were infants aged 19-23 months and 24-28 months.
Main Results:
- Infants aged 19-23 months successfully performed the task under unilateral presentation.
- Only infants aged 24 months and older could learn the task under bilateral presentation.
- This suggests a developmental shift in visual information processing around 24 months.
Conclusions:
- Simultaneous attention to the two visual fields emerges late in development, around 24 months.
- Interhemispheric coordination of visual information also develops around 24 months.
- These findings highlight a significant developmental milestone in early childhood cognition.
Abstract:
Simultaneous attention in the two visual fields and interhemispheric integration of visual information was studied in 19-23 and 24-28-month-old infants. The stimuli were schematic faces within which the pair of eyes was made of either two identical (two circles or two triangles) or two different eyes (triangle-circle, circle-triangle). The faces were presented either in one visual hemifield, on the right or left side of a central fixation point (unilateral presentation), or across the two visual hemifields (bilateral presentation), with one eye of the stimulus on each side of the fixation point. The task was an operant conditioning task where the children had to decide whether the shapes of the two eyes were identical or not. The results show that even the younger subjects were able to perform the task when presented in the unilateral presentation condition, whereas only children aged 24 months and older could learn the task when presented in the bilateral condition. It is concluded that simultaneous attention to the two visual fields and inter-hemispheric co-ordination of visual information emerge very late in development at about the age of 24 months.
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