L. Hainline et I. Abramov, EYE MOVEMENT-BASED MEASURES OF DEVELOPMENT OF SPATIAL CONTRAST SENSITIVITY IN INFANTS, Optometry and vision science, 74(10), 1997, pp. 790-799
This study presents spatial contrast sensitivity functions from 66 inf
ants ranging in age from 12 to 146 days. Functions were derived using
a behavioral method based on eye movements; in this method, the subjec
t viewed drifting sinusoidal gratings while an experimenter, who did n
ot know the direction of stimulus drift, voted on that direction based
only on the record of the subject's eye movements. Results show that
there is a marked increase in contrast sensitivity across age, as well
as a modest shift of the peak of the function and of the acuity limit
to higher spatial frequencies. However, when normalized with respect
to peak frequency and peak sensitivity, the functions at all ages have
the same general shape and can be fit with a standard template curve
used to describe contrast sensitivity in the adult visual system; that
is, even the youngest infants clearly show a drop in sensitivity at f
requencies below the peaks of their functions.