The developing visual brain / Janette Atkinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Atkinson, Janette.

Series:

Oxford psychology series ; no. 32.

Oxford psychology series ; no. 32

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Visual perception in infants.

Vision in infants.

Visual Perception.

Infant.

Brain.

Brain--growth & development.

Medical Subjects:

Visual Perception.

Infant.

Brain.

Brain--growth & development.

Physical Description:

xx, 211 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2000.

Summary:

One of the most dramatic areas of development in early human life is that of vision. Whereas vision plays a relatively minor role in the world of the newborn infant, by 6 months it has assumed the position as a dominant sense and forms the basis of later perceptual, cognitive, and social development. From a world leader in the study of visual development in human infants comes a major new work, condensing a lifetime of work in this area -- The Developing Visual Brain. Drawing on over 20 years of cutting edge research in the Visual Development Units in Cambridge and University College London, the book provides the definitive account of what we know about the developing visual system, and the problems that can occur during development. The book reviews, evaluates, and sets in context the exciting progress being made in this area, and additionally suggests new areas for research. Written to be accessible for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in psychology, the neurosciences, optometry, and visual science, The Developing Visual Brain represents an important new addition to the literature on vision.

Contents:

1.1 Major influences 1

1.2 Influences from adult and animal neuroscience 1

1.3 Influences from perceptual and cognitive psychology 3

1.4 Nature-nurture 4

1.5 Newer influences from neural imaging 5

2 Paediatric Vision Testing 7

2.1 Behavioural and electrophysiological methods for infant testing 9

2.1.1 Infant eye movements 9

2.1.2 Measuring eye movements 9

2.2 Common methods used in studying developing vision

from infancy to school age 10

2.2.1 Preferential looking 10

2.2.2 Teller/Keeler cards 12

2.2.3 Acuity measures beyond infancy 12

2.2.4 Habituation methods 14

2.2.5 The Atkinson Battery of Child Development for Examining Functional Vision (ABCDEFV): a battery for assessing functional vision 18

2.2.6 Photorefraction and videorefraction 19

2.3 Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) or visual event related potentials (VERPs) 25

3 Models of Visual Development 28

3.1 Overall theoretical approach 28

3.2 Neuroscientific accounts of visual development 28

3.2.1 Two visual systems in development: 'where' and 'what 28

3.2.2 Three visual systems or streams of processing in development: 'where', 'what', and 'how' 30

3.3 Multiple visual modules with different functions 32

3.4 Development of visual attention 35

3.5 Summary of the developmental model 37

3.5.1 Crude orienting attentional system 38

3.5.2 Functional onset of specific cortical modules 38

3.5.3 Development of integration ('binding') and segmentation processes 38

3.5.4 Integration of crude subcortical orienting systems with cortical attentional systems for control of directed eye and head movements 38

3.5.5 Development of reaching and grasping action modules 39

3.5.6 Development of locomotion accompanied by attentional shifting between different scales of representation of space at different distances 39

3.5.7 Integration of object recognition, actions, and speech 40

3.5.8 Automation of visuomotor programs and parallel processing 41

4 Newborn Vision 43

4.1 State of newborn vision: crude orienting 43

4.2 Acuity and contrast sensitivity 44

4.3 Measures of improvement of acuity and contrast sensitivity with age 46

4.3.1 Comparison of acuity estimates from FPL and VEP measures 47

4.4 Factors limiting acuity and contrast sensitivity during development 52

4.5 Face perception 53

5 Development Optics

Refraction and Focusing or Accommodation 58

5.1 Changes in accommodation with age 58

5.2 Changes of refraction with age 59

6 Functional Onset of Specific Cortical Modules 65

6.1 Colour vision 66

6.3 Directional motion 74

6.3.1 Optokinetic nystagmus

evidence for early directionality 74

6.3.2 Directional discrimination and sensitivity 77

6.3.3 First- and second-order motion 81

6.3.4 Conclusions on motion 82

6.4 Binocularity 83

6.5 Eye alignment 86

6.6 Perception of depth and distance using disparity discrimination 87

6.7 Theories of cortical organization before and after the onset of functional binocularity 88

6.8 Conclusions on early cortical development 90

7 Development of Integration ('Binding') and Segmentation Processes Leading to Object Perception 91

7.1 Development of segmentation processes 93

7.2 Segmentation on the basis of orientation 94

7.3 Segmentation on the basis of motion 96

7.4 Increased sensitivity to coherent motion with age 97

7.5 Segmentation by line terminators 97

7.6 Object recognition from biological motion 101

7.7 Spatial grouping ability 103

8 The Interlinked Approach to Development of Attention and Action 107

8.2 What do we mean by 'attention'? 107

8.3 Early stages of development of selective attention 108

8.4 Attention and action systems controlling head and eye movements 109

8.4.1 Model for improvements in attentional processing early in life 109

8.4.1.1 Measurements of orienting to new stimuli in the periphery as seen in saccadic shifts to a peripheral target when an object appears 111

8.4.1.2 Changes in the pattern of scanning eye movements with age 118

8.4.1.3 Measures of changes in focusing accuracy or accommodation to targets attended 120

8.4.2 Overall conclusions on early attentional eye and head movement systems 121

8.5 Development of visually guided reaching and grasping 122

8.5.1 Controversies in development of reaching and grasping 122

8.6 Subcortical and cortical motor pathways 124

8.6.1 Reaching under binocular and monocular viewing 126

8.6.2 Preferential looking and preferential reaching in early development 127

8.6.3 Preferential reaching 128

8.6.4 Preferential looking 129

8.6.5 Right/left looking biases 131

8.6.6 Ipsilateral reaching to the object on the same side as the reaching hand 132

9 Plasticity in Visual Development 135

9.1 Does extra or abnormal visual input produce changes in visual brain development? 136

9.1.1 What are the effects of extra visual stimulation in normal children on visual brain development? 136

9.1.1.1 Neurologically normal very low birth weight premature infants with extra visual experience 136

9.1.1.2 Two infants with enhanced exposure to particular oblique orientations in early infancy 140

9.1.2 What are the effects of reduced or anomalous visual input on visual brain development? 142

9.1.2.1 Effects of congenital cataract and strabismus on development 143

9.1.2.1.1 Congenital cataract 143

9.1.2.1.2 Early-onset strabismus 144

9.1.2.1.3 Accommodative esotropia 146

9.1.2.1.4 Underlying physiology of early binocular plasticity 147

9.1.3.1 Effects of reduced input due to refractive errors, e.g. children with a history of refractive errors (e.g. anisometropia, astigmatism) identified, but not corrected, in infancy 148

9.2 Does abnormal input produce changes in more peripheral visual systems? 152

9.2.1 Deprivation myopia and emmetropization 152

9.3 Does brain damage or early abnormal brain structure produce compensating changes in visual systems? 154

9.3.1 Visual development following hemispherectomy in infancy 155

9.3.2 Visual development following very early brain lesions monitored by structural MRI (both general and focal) 155

9.3.3 Anomalous brain development: the case of Williams syndrome 158

9.3.4 Visual and cognitive development in Williams syndrome 159

9.3.4.1 Hypothesis 1: visual and spatial deficits are strongly linked 161

9.3.4.2 Hypothesis 2: Dorsal stream deficit 161

9.3.4.2.1 Motion and form coherence 162

9.3.4.2.2 The letter box task

matching orientation and posting 162

9.3.4.3 Hypothesis 3: Frontal deficits 165

9.3.4.4 Right and left hemisphere deficits 166

10.1 What is our current model of visual brain development? 171

10.2 Given our current model, what is vision really like for young infants? 173

10.3 The role of consciousness and control 174

10.4 How much plasticity and variation is there in development? 175

10.5 What is visual disability? 175

10.6 How can we work across multiple levels of analysis? 176.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [177]-202) and index.

ISBN:

0198522975

OCLC:

42842382