Abstract
Performance on random-dot global motion tasks may reach adult-like levels before 4 or as late as 16 years of age, depending on the specific parameters used to create the stimuli. Later maturation has been found for slower speeds, smaller spatial displacements, and sparser dot arrays. This protracted development on global motion tasks may depend on limitations specific to spatial aspects of a motion stimulus rather than to motion mechanisms per se. The current study investigated the impact of varying stimulus area (9, 36, and 81 deg2) on the global motion coherence thresholds of children 4–6 years old and adults for three signal dot displacements (∆x = 1, 5, and 30 arcmin). We aimed to determine whether children could achieve mature performance for the smallest displacements, a condition previously found to show late maturation, when a larger stimulus area was used. Coherence thresholds were higher in children compared to adults in the 1 and 5 arcmin displacement conditions, as reported previously, and this did not change as a function of stimulus area. However, both children and adults performed better with a larger stimulus area in the 30 arcmin displacement condition only. This suggests that immature spatial integration, as measured by stimulus area, cannot account for immaturities in global motion perception.
Highlights
The study of the development of motion perception has revealed that, as with many visual functions, different aspects take longer to mature than others
Previous work has indicated that young children show immature performance at the smallest, but not largest, ∆x values assessed in the current study [7,8]
The results of the current study replicate these prior results, and confirm that these immaturities are not limited by the spatial extent of stimulus area
Summary
The study of the development of motion perception has revealed that, as with many visual functions, different aspects take longer to mature than others. In a large cross-sectional study of observers between 7 and 30 years of age [8], we previously determined that adult-like performance was reached before age 7 for a large displacement (30 arcmin), around age 11 for a medium displacement (5 arcmin), and as late as age 16 for a small displacement (1 arcmin). This was the case for stimuli with a ∆t parameter of 17 ms (corresponding to speeds of 30, 5, and 1 deg/s, respectively) and of 50 ms (corresponding to speeds of 10, 1.7, and 0.3 deg/s, respectively). Along with evidence that performance in children with amblyopia is impaired at small and medium, but not Vision 2019, 3, 10; doi:10.3390/vision3010010 www.mdpi.com/journal/vision
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