Visual attention develops rapidly across the first postnatal year, from reflexive eye movements driven by low-level stimulus properties to increasingly voluntary eye movements influenced by higher-order factors. To test the hypothesis that development reflects guidance by increasingly abstract features, we used representational similarity analysis…

Background: When looking at faces, we tend to attend more to the left visual field (corresponding to the right side of the person's face). This phenomenon is called the left visual field bias (LVF) and is presumed to reflect the brain's right-sided dominance for face processing. Whether alterations in hemispheric dominance are present in dyslexia,…

Visual information is organised according to visual grouping principles. In visual grouping tasks individuals with ASD have shown equivocal performance. We explored neural correlates of Gestalt grouping in individuals with and without ASD. Neuromagnetic activity of individuals with (15) and without (18) ASD was compared during a visual grouping…

Linguistic categories can impact visual perception. For instance, learning that two objects have different names can enhance their discriminability. Previous studies have identified a typical pattern of categorical perception, characterized by faster discrimination of stimuli from different categories, a neural mismatch response during early…

Visual objects are often defined by multiple features. Therefore, learning novel objects entails learning feature conjunctions. Visual cortex is organized into distinct anatomical compartments, each of which is devoted to processing a single feature. A prime example are neurons purely selective to color and orientation, respectively. However,…

The development of the ability to anticipate--as manifested by preparatory actions and neural activation related to the expectation of an upcoming stimulus--may play a key role in the ontogeny of cognitive skills more broadly. This preregistered study examined anticipatory brain potentials and behavioral responses (reaction time; RT) to…

Children with dyslexia frequently also struggle with math. However, studies of reading disability (RD) rarely assess math skill, and the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying co-occurring reading and math disability (RD+MD) are not clear. The current study aimed to identify behavioral and neurocognitive factors associated with co-occurring MD among…

Caregiver executive functions (EFs) play an integral role in shaping cognitive development. Here, we investigated how caregiver EF abilities (86 caregivers; "mean age" = 33.4 years, SD = 4.5) was associated with visual working memory (VWM) in infants (86 infants females; mean age = 250.6 days, SD = 35.8). The BRIEF-A was used to assess…

A large body of research has revealed that viewing example image stimuli tends to constrain creative idea generation. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying such visual fixation in creative cognition are unclear. In the present experiment, we explored whether example images impacted creative imagination and patterns of neural activity…

This study investigated the development of rapid visual object categorization. N = 20 adults (Experiment 1), N = 21 five to six-year-old children (Experiment 2), and N = 140 four-, seven-, and eleven-month-old infants (Experiment 3; all predominantly White, 81 females, data collected in 2013-2020) participated in a fast periodic visual stimulation…

Home enrichment plays an important role in shaping children's development. In the current study, we inquired whether home enrichment was associated with pre-schoolers' visual working memory (VWM) function, a critical cognitive system necessary for maintaining information for short periods of time. Home enrichment was assessed using an adapted…

Previous studies have shown that compared to hearing individuals, early deaf individuals allocate relatively more attention to the periphery than central visual field. However, it is not clear whether these two groups also differ in their ability to selectively attend to specific peripheral locations. We examined deaf and hearing participants'…

Despite immense variability across languages, people can learn to understand any human language, spoken or signed. What neural mechanisms allow people to comprehend language across sensory modalities? When people listen to speech, electrophysiological oscillations in auditory cortex entrain to slow (<8 Hz) fluctuations in the acoustic envelope.…

Our visual experience is surprisingly rich: We do not only see low-level properties such as colors or contours; we also see events, or what is happening. Within linguistics, the examination of how we talk about events suggests that relatively abstract elements exist in the mind which pertain to the relational structure of events, including general…

The development of numerical and arithmetic abilities constitutes a crucial cornerstone in our modern and educated societies. Difficulties to acquire these central skills can lead to severe consequences for an individual's well-being and nation's economy. In the present review, we describe our current broad understanding of the functional and…