The nature of visual perception in infants differs significantly from that of older infants, children, and adults, as revealed by a recent study titled “An edge-simplicity bias in the visual input to young infants,” published in Science Advances on May 10 by IU researchers Erin Anderson, Rowan Candy, Jason Gold, and Linda Smith.
Principal investigator Linda Smith, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, explains that conventional assumptions regarding the uniformity of visual input across different ages are challenged by this study. It highlights unique visual experiences for very young infants, suggesting that their daily visual input is distinctively tailored to their developmental stage.
Previous laboratory and clinical studies had indicated that young infants exhibit a preference for simple, high-contrast visual stimuli, such as bold black stripes and checkerboard patterns. However, this recent research is the first to investigate the extent to which these preferences shape the infants’ everyday visual encounters.
To gain insight into the visual environment of young infants, the researchers equipped infants with head-mounted cameras during their daily activities at home. The findings revealed that infants are surrounded by scenes characterized by few high-contrast edges in simple patterns, mirroring their preferences observed in controlled settings.
According to Anderson, a former postdoctoral researcher in Smith’s Cognitive Development Lab, the head-camera videos demonstrate that infants encounter these familiar visual stimuli naturally in their surroundings, such as in lighting fixtures and ceiling corners.
Smith emphasizes the significance of this early visual exposure, likening it to a specialized “diet” tailored for visual development. Much like how infants start with simple, developmentally appropriate nourishment rather than complex meals, their visual environment is primed to support foundational visual skills.
The study underscores the critical role of early visual experiences in shaping future visual development. It sheds light on the importance of addressing visual deficiencies in infancy, which can have lasting effects on visual capabilities.
Furthermore, the research has implications for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) visual systems. Just as infants benefit from exposure to simple, high-contrast visual content, AI systems exhibit enhanced visual learning when trained with similar stimuli.
By capturing and analyzing 70 hours of visual data from infants and adult caregivers, the researchers identified clear distinctions in the visual input of infants compared to adults. Infants’ visual scenes contained a higher prevalence of simple patterns and high-contrast edges, reflecting their developmental stage.
Smith suggests that caregivers likely position infants in environments conducive to their visual exploration, contributing to the observed differences in visual input between infants and adults.
Although the study involved a small sample from Bloomington, Indiana, subsequent experiments conducted in collaboration with a partner in Chennai, India, yielded similar results. Despite differences in environmental factors, such as electricity availability and outdoor activities, infants in both locations shared a common visual “diet” characterized by high-contrast edges and simple patterns.
Additionally, the researchers investigated the impact of early visual exposure on AI visual systems. Their findings suggest that AI systems trained with images representative of early infancy exhibit improved visual recognition compared to those trained with random developmental sequences or adult-oriented images.
This research prompts further exploration into the evolutionary significance of slow motor development in human infants. Smith speculates that gradual, optimized biases in visual input contribute to the development of sophisticated visual and auditory systems over evolutionary time.
In conclusion, the study underscores the importance of early visual experiences in shaping both human and AI visual development. It raises intriguing questions about the evolutionary origins of infant visual biases and their long-term implications for visual cognition.
