Search

The development of motion processing is a critical part of visual development, allowing children to interact with moving objects and navigate within a dynamic environment. However, global motion processing, which requires pooling motion information across space, develops late, reaching adult-like levels only by mid-to-late childhood. The reasons underlying this protracted development are not yet fully understood. In this study, we sought to determine whether the development of motion coherence sensitivity is limited by internal noise (i.e., imprecision in estimating the directions of individual elements) and/or global pooling across local estimates. To this end, we presented equivalent noise direction discrimination tasks and motion coherence tasks at both slow (1.5°/s) and fast (6°/s) speeds to children aged 5, 7, 9 and 11 years, and adults. We show that, as children get older, their levels of internal noise reduce, and they are able to average across more local motion estimates. Regression analyses indicated, however, that age-related improvements in coherent motion perception are driven solely by improvements in averaging and not by reductions in internal noise. Our results suggest that the development of coherent motion sensitivity is primarily limited by developmental changes within brain regions involved in integrating motion signals (e.g., MT/V5).

The development of motion processing is a critical part of visual development, allowing children to interact with moving objects and navigate within a dynamic environment. However, global motion processing, which requires pooling motion information across space, develops late, reaching adult-like levels only by mid-to-late childhood. The reasons underlying this protracted development are not yet fully understood. In this study, we sought to determine whether the development of motion coherence sensitivity is limited by internal noise (i.e., imprecision in estimating the directions of individual elements) and/or global pooling across local estimates. To this end, we presented equivalent noise direction discrimination tasks and motion coherence tasks at both slow (1.5°/s) and fast (6°/s) speeds to children aged 5, 7, 9 and 11 years, and adults. We show that, as children get older, their levels of internal noise reduce, and they are able to average across more local motion estimates. Regression analyses indicated, however, that age-related improvements in coherent motion perception are driven solely by improvements in averaging and not by reductions in internal noise. Our results suggest that the development of coherent motion sensitivity is primarily limited by developmental changes within brain regions involved in integrating motion signals (e.g., MT/V5). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We measured evoked responses to directional motion in children and adults. • Two reliable components with distinct time-courses and topographies were identified. • Both component waveforms exhibited clear age-related differences. • Both early sensory and later decisional processes seem to develop across childhood. Motion sensitivity increases during childhood, but little is known about the neural correlates. Most studies investigating children's evoked responses have not dissociated direction-specific and non-direction-specific responses. To isolate direction-specific responses, we presented coherently moving dot stimuli preceded by incoherent motion, to 6- to 7-year-olds (n = 34), 8- to 10-year-olds (n = 34), 10- to 12-year-olds (n = 34) and adults (n = 20). Participants reported the coherent motion direction while high-density EEG was recorded. Using a data-driven approach, we identified two stimulus-locked EEG components with distinct topographies: an early component with an occipital topography likely reflecting sensory encoding and a later, sustained positive component over centro-parietal electrodes that we attribute to decision-related processes. The component waveforms showed clear age-related differences. In the early, occipital component, all groups showed a negativity peaking at ˜300 ms, like the previously reported coherent-motion N2. However, the children, unlike adults, showed an additional positive peak at ˜200 ms, suggesting differential stimulus encoding. The later positivity in the centro-parietal component rose more steeply for adults than for the youngest children, likely reflecting age-related speeding of decision-making. We conclude that children's protracted development of coherent motion sensitivity is associated with maturation of both early sensory and later decision-related processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]