A high‐density EEG study of differentiation between two speeds and directions of simulated optic flow in adults and infants

• Published in: Psychophysiology 2019-01, Vol.56 (1), p.e13281-n/a
• Main Authors: Vilhelmsen, Kenneth, Agyei, Seth B., van der Weel, F. R. (Ruud), van der Meer, Audrey L. H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Child Development - physiology; Cortex; development; EEG; Electroencephalography; ERPs; Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology; Female; Humans; Infant; Infants; Information processing; Latency; Locomotion; Male; Motion detection; Motion Perception - physiology; Neural networks; Optic flow; Optic Flow - physiology; oscillation/time frequency analyses; Photic Stimulation - methods; Synchronization; Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy; Visual Cortex - physiology; visual processes; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0048-5772; 1469-8986; 1540-5958
• DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13281

A high‐density EEG study was carried out to investigate cortical activity in response to forward and backward visual motion at two different driving speeds, simulated through optic flow. Participants were prelocomotor infants at the age of 4–5 months and infants with at least 3 weeks of crawling experience at the age of 8–11 months, and adults. Adults displayed shorter N2 latencies in response to forward as opposed to backward visual motion and differentiated significantly between low and high speeds, with shorter latencies for low speeds. Only infants at 8–11 months displayed similar latency differences between motion directions, and exclusively in response to low speed. The developmental differences in latency between infant groups are interpreted in terms of a combination of increased experience with self‐produced locomotion and neurobiological development. Analyses of temporal spectral evolution (TSE, time‐dependent amplitude changes) were also performed to investigate nonphase‐locked changes at lower frequencies in underlying neuronal networks. TSE showed event‐related desynchronization activity in response to visual motion for infants compared to adults. The poorer responses in infants are probably related to immaturity of the dorsal visual stream specialized in the processing of visual motion and could explain the observed problems in infants with differentiating high speeds of up to 50 km/h.