Longitudinal study of infants' and children's perception of optic flow and random motion using high-density EEG

A longitudinal electroencephalogram (EEG) study was performed with 5 participants tested for 3 sessions at age 4 and 12 months and 6 years to study brain electrical activity responses to perception of structured forwards optic flow, structured reversed optic flow, and non-structured random visual motion. Analyses of visual evoked potentials (VEP) and time-spectral evolution (TSE) were conducted on EEG data recorded with 128- and 256-channel Geodesic Sensor Net 200 (GSN). Children’s motor skills were also tested with Movement ABC battery. A significant decrease in latency was found with increasing age. No significant effect of visual motion condition or interaction effect was found. Individual TSE analyses revealed that infants at 4 months primarily displayed desynchronized theta-band activity for motion stimuli, and synchronized theta-band activity for static non-flow stimuli. The 12-month-old infants showed much of the pattern of the children, however with more activity in alpha- and beta-band range. Children had a further increase in alpha- and beta-band activity, as well as increased synchronized activity to motion stimuli that is more in accordance to the previous findings in adults. The development of visual perception of optic flow is believed to be an interacting process between neurobiological development and increased self-produced locomotor experience. A larger number of participants is necessary to further investigate the development of visual motion perception from infancy to childhood