Sensitive Periods in Visual Development

Patterned visual input during early infancy plays a key role in constructing and/or preserving the neural architecture that will be used later for both low-level basic vision and higher-level visual decoding. The high-contrast, low spatial frequencies that newborns can extract from their environment set up the system for later development of fine acuity, expert face processing, and specialization of the visual cortex for visual processing. Nevertheless, considerable plasticity remains in adulthood for rescuing the system from earlier damage.