Skelton Alice E, Franklin Anna, Bosten Jenny M
The Sussex Colour Group & Sussex Baby Lab, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
The Sussex Vision Lab, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
Dev Sci. 2023 Nov;26(6):e13402. doi: 10.1111/desc.13402. Epub 2023 May 3.
Visual perception in adult humans is thought to be tuned to represent the statistical regularities of natural scenes. For example, in adults, visual sensitivity to different hues shows an asymmetry which coincides with the statistical regularities of colour in the natural world. Infants are sensitive to statistical regularities in social and linguistic stimuli, but whether or not infants' visual systems are tuned to natural scene statistics is currently unclear. We measured colour discrimination in infants to investigate whether or not the visual system can represent chromatic scene statistics in very early life. Our results reveal the earliest association between vision and natural scene statistics that has yet been found: even as young as 4 months of age, colour vision is aligned with the distributions of colours in natural scenes. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We find infants' colour sensitivity is aligned with the distribution of colours in the natural world, as it is in adults. At just 4 months, infants' visual systems are tailored to extract and represent the statistical regularities of the natural world. This points to a drive for the human brain to represent statistical regularities even at a young age.
成年人类的视觉感知被认为经过调整，以呈现自然场景的统计规律。例如，在成年人中，对不同色调的视觉敏感度表现出一种不对称性，这与自然界中颜色的统计规律相吻合。婴儿对社会和语言刺激中的统计规律很敏感，但目前尚不清楚婴儿的视觉系统是否会根据自然场景统计进行调整。我们测量了婴儿的颜色辨别能力，以研究视觉系统在生命早期是否能够呈现色彩场景统计规律。我们的研究结果揭示了迄今为止发现的视觉与自然场景统计之间最早的关联：即使在4个月大时，色觉就与自然场景中的颜色分布相匹配。研究亮点：我们发现婴儿的颜色敏感度与自然界中的颜色分布相匹配，就像成年人一样。仅在4个月大时，婴儿的视觉系统就已具备提取和呈现自然世界统计规律的能力。这表明人类大脑即使在幼年时也有呈现统计规律的驱动力。
