On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:20:41 -0800, Riki Koenig wrote: >Please excuse the cross-posting > >A question arose today about when babies can perceive color. >Is it an innate ability? The opposing view is that they can only >see black and white at birth and color requires neurological >development and maturation.
I'm not sure that the distinction is so "black & white" (pardon the expression) but one reference relevant to this is the following: Experience in Early Infancy Is Indispensable for Color Perception Current Biology, 14(14), July 2004, 1267-1271. Yoichi Sugita, Neuroscience Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and Crest, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Teragu 1497-1, Tsukuba, 300-4201, Japan Received 2 March 2004; revised 1 June 2004; accepted 1 June 2004. Published: July 27, 2004. Available online 26 July 2004. Abstract Early visual experience is indispensable to shape the maturation of cortical circuits during development [1]. Monocular deprivation in infancy, for instance, leads to an irreversible reduction of visually driven activity in the visual cortex through the deprived eye and a loss of binocular depth perception [2], [3] and [4]. It was tested whether or not early experience is also necessary for color perception. Infant monkeys were reared for nearly a year in a separate room where the illumination came from only monochromatic lights. After extensive training, they were able to perform color matching. But, their judgment of color similarity was quite different from that of normal animals. Furthermore, they had severe deficits in color constancy; their color vision was very much wavelength dominated, so they could not compensate for the changes in wavelength composition. These results indicate that early visual experience is also indispensable for normal color perception. Copyright © 2004 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VRT-4CY7JRM-W&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1087176576&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f17062fd800a1bd5e4f6ae51ab2f677f -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
