Abstract

Over the past several years a consensus has arisen regarding the spatial frequency, orientation, and temporal frequency tuning of adult visual mechanisms in both the fovea and periphery. How do these characteristics develop in the infant visual system? Discussion of this issue focuses on three major hypotheses:

(1) Infant visual development results from the progressive sensitivity increase of mechanisms that otherwise possess adult characteristics.

(2) Infant visual mechanisms are large (or low spatial frequency) versions of their adult counterparts and development consists mainly of a shift of these toward higher spatial frequencies.

(3) Infant visual mechanisms are much more broadly tuned than their adult counterparts due to reduced strength of spatial and temporal inhibition.

© 1986 Optical Society of America