| In the present paper we address the question of simultaneous color contrast in 4-month-old human infants. A temporal modulation paradigm was employed for infant testing. In this paradigm, infants viewed two test disks presented side-by-side: one of unchanging chromaticity (static) and another, the chromaticity of which was varied in time (temporally modulated). The test stimuli were embedded in a surround that was either static, or temporally modulated in phase with the modulated test stimulus. The temporally modulated test stimuli were chosen in such a way as to appear static to adults when viewed in the temporally modulated surround. Based on the observation that infants prefer to look more at flickering stimuli, we predicted that if infants have adult-like simultaneous color contrast, their preference for the temporally modulated stimulus should decrease when the surround is also temporally modulated. In concordance with this prediction, we observed a significant increase in preference to temporally static stimuli with the introduction of temporal modulation in the surround. We conclude that infants as young as four months of age have simultaneous color contrast. |
