Object processing in the infant: lessons from neuroscience

Abstract

Object identification is a fundamental cognitive capacity that forms the basis for complex thought and behavior. The adult cortex is organized into functionally distinct visual object-processing pathways that mediate this ability. Insights into the origin of these pathways have begun to emerge through the use of neuroimaging techniques with infant populations. The outcome of this work supports the view that, from the early days of life, object-processing pathways are organized in a way that resembles that of the adult. At the same time, theoretically important changes in patterns of cortical activation are observed during the first year. These findings lead to a new understanding of the cognitive and neural architecture in infants that supports their emerging object-processing capacities.

Keywords: functional near-infrared spectroscopy; infants; object processing; occipital cortex; parietal cortex; temporal cortex.

Figure I

The function pound (top row) and pour (bottom row) pretest events of [47] and also used in [13]. The pound and pour events were seen on alternating trials. Infants saw two pairs of pound-pour events, each with a different pair of green and red objects.

Figure 1

Lateral view of the adult human brain with major sulci labeled. Dorsal and ventral streams are indicated with blue and yellow highlighted arrows, respectively. Approximate location of anterior temporal cortex, posterior temporal cortex, lateral occipital complex (LOC), and posterior parietal cortex are indicated.

Figure 2

(A) The wide-screen shape-difference, color-difference, and control test events used in studies investigating infants’ use of featural information to individuate objects [39]. Events were presented live in a puppet stage apparatus. Figures depict one cycle of the event; infants typically saw multiple cycles during each test trial. Infants aged 4.5 to 12.5 months interpret the shape-difference, but not control, event as involving two objects. It is not until 11.5 months that infants interpret the color-difference event as involving two objects. (B) The location of the nine measurement channels in the fNIRS studies, placed relative to 10–20 coordinates on a schematic of an infant’s head. Cranio-cerebral maps ([95], also see [96]) suggest that channels 1 to 3 fall in the anterior temporal cortex, channels 4 and 5 in the posterior temporal cortex, channels 6 and 7 in the posterior parietal cortex, and channels 8 and 9 in the occipital cortex. (C) An infant participating in an fNIRS study.