Color-based motion processing is stronger in infants than in adults

One hallmark of vision in adults is the dichotomy between color and motion processing. Specifically, areas of the brain that encode an object's direction of motion are thought to receive little information about object color. We investigated the development of this dichotomy by conducting psychophysical experiments with human subjects (2-, 3-, and 4-month-olds and adults), using a novel red-green stimulus that isolates color-based input to motion processing. When performance on this red-green motion stimulus was quantified with respect to performance on a luminance (yellow-black) standard, we found stronger color-based motion processing in infants than in adults. These results suggest that color input to motion areas is greater early in life, and that motion areas then specialize to the adultlike state by reweighting or selectively pruning their inputs over the course of development.