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Infants’ neural entrainment in response to visual regularities

par Capparini, Chiara ;Fourdin, Lauréline ;Testa, Alessia;Dontaine, Pauline ;Wens, Vincent ;De Tiege, Xavier ;Aeby, Alec ;Bertels, Julie
Référence Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD) 2024 (Budapest, Hungary)
Publication Publié, 2024-01

Poster de conférence

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Résumé :

Visual statistical learning refers to the ability to detect and extract regularities from the environment. Thus far, infancy research has mostly investigated this ability with post-exposure behavioural tasks which only reveal the outcome of learning. Notably, behavioural tasks may lead to ambiguous interpretations since there is no clear consensus about the directionality of the expected learning outcome. Electrophysiological measures such as steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) can be acquired while learning occurs and can shed light onto the temporal course of learning. At present, SSVEPs investigations of the ongoing learning processes have been limited to the auditory domain (Choi et al., 2020). In this study, we use SSVEPs to investigate infants’ neural entrainment mechanisms in response to visual regularities. Four- to six-month-old infants were presented with 20 s streams of 8 colourful shapes appearing in the centre of the screen at a frequency of 6 Hz. They were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: 1) standard doublet, in which shapes were organised in 4 doublets, 2) control doublet, in which shapes formed 16 doublets, and 3) random. We compared SSVEPs at the frequency of visual stimulation (6 Hz and its harmonics) and at the doublet frequency (3 Hz and its harmonics) across conditions. If the condition included visual regularities, we hypothesised a progressive response at 3 Hz. Results revealed neural entrainment at the base frequency that did not differ across conditions. This confirmed that infants were similarly attending to the visual stream of stimuli. On the other side, activity at the doublet frequency varied across conditions. Infants assigned to the doublet conditions showed greater responses at the doublet frequency, especially at 9 Hz, compared to the random condition. Overall, these results suggest that the infant brain can detect visual regularities in a stream of shapes from very early on.