Natural scene statistics of visual experience across development and culture

Human infants undergo significant changes in body size, posture, and locomotor capability over the first several years of life. As a result, the statistics of visual motion infant observers experience differ from adults in some situations. We ask whether these differences apply more generally, and if so, what factors account for them. In one analysis, we simulate the effects of changes in body posture, speed of locomotion, and surface geometry on motion statistics. In a second analysis, we empirically measure the statistics of visual motion experienced by observers across the first year of life using infant-perspective videos captured during episodes when infants were moving through space or were stationary. We include samples of infants in from North America and those from India, to assess how variations in cultural practices influence infants' visual experiences. We find that fast laminar motion patterns dominate the visual input young infants experience and that cultural differences play a small role in shaping visual motion experiences.

人类婴儿在出生后的最初几年里，身体尺寸、姿势和运动能力会发生显著变化。因此，婴儿观察者所经历的视觉运动统计特征在某些情况下与成人存在差异。我们探讨这些差异是否具有更广泛的适用性，若存在，则需明确其影响因素。在第一项分析中，我们模拟了身体姿势、运动速度和表面几何特征的变化对运动统计特征的影响。在第二项分析中，我们利用婴儿视角的视频（记录了婴儿在空间中移动或静止时的场景），对出生后第一年观察者所经历的视觉运动统计特征进行了实证测量。我们纳入了来自北美和印度的婴儿样本，以评估文化实践的差异如何影响婴儿的视觉体验。研究发现，快速层流运动模式（laminar motion patterns）主导了低龄婴儿所接收的视觉输入，且文化差异在塑造视觉运动体验方面的作用较小。