Development of saccadic suppression in children

We measured saccadic suppression in adolescent children and young adults using spatially curtailed low spatial frequency stimuli. For both groups, sensitivity for color-modulated stimuli was unchanged during saccades. Sensitivity for luminance-modulated stimuli was greatly reduced during saccades in both groups but far more for adolescents than for young adults. Adults' suppression was on average a factor of about 3, whereas that for the adolescent group was closer to a factor of 10. The specificity of the suppression to luminance-modulated stimuli excludes generic explanations such as task difficulty and attention. We suggest that the enhanced suppression in adolescents results from the immaturity of the ocular-motor system at that age.