Expert-level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experience
Summary: We studied 28 late-sighted Ethiopian children who were born with bilateral cataracts and remained nearly blind for years, recovering pattern-vision only in late childhood. This ''natural experiment'' offers a rare opportunity to assess the causal effect of early visual e...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2025-05-01
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| Series: | iScience |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225007151 |
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| author | Ilana Naveh Sara Attias Asael Y. Sklar Itay Ben-Zion Ehud Zohary |
| author_facet | Ilana Naveh Sara Attias Asael Y. Sklar Itay Ben-Zion Ehud Zohary |
| author_sort | Ilana Naveh |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Summary: We studied 28 late-sighted Ethiopian children who were born with bilateral cataracts and remained nearly blind for years, recovering pattern-vision only in late childhood. This ''natural experiment'' offers a rare opportunity to assess the causal effect of early visual experience on later function acquisition. Here, we focus on vision-based understanding of human social interactions. The late-sighted were poorer than typically developing peers (albeit better than chance) in categorizing observed social scenes as friendly or aggressive, irrespective of the display format (i.e., full-body videos, still images, or point-light displays). This deficiency was maintained when retested later. They were also impaired in recognizing single-person attributes, which are useful for human interaction understanding (such as judging heading-direction based on biological-motion cues, or emotional states from body-posture gestures). Thus, the comprehension of visually observed socially relevant actions and body gestures is impaired in the late-sighted. We conclude that early visual experience is necessary for developing the skills required for utilizing visual cues for social scene understanding. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-b8209161b73c4cc1bfdb363c6a52ea54 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2589-0042 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-05-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | iScience |
| spelling | doaj-art-b8209161b73c4cc1bfdb363c6a52ea542025-08-20T02:55:32ZengElsevieriScience2589-00422025-05-0128511245410.1016/j.isci.2025.112454Expert-level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experienceIlana Naveh0Sara Attias1Asael Y. Sklar2Itay Ben-Zion3Ehud Zohary4Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, IsraelEdmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, IsraelErison School of Business, Reichman University, Herzliya, IsraelDepartment of Ophthalmology, Padeh medical center, Poriya, IsraelEdmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel; Corresponding authorSummary: We studied 28 late-sighted Ethiopian children who were born with bilateral cataracts and remained nearly blind for years, recovering pattern-vision only in late childhood. This ''natural experiment'' offers a rare opportunity to assess the causal effect of early visual experience on later function acquisition. Here, we focus on vision-based understanding of human social interactions. The late-sighted were poorer than typically developing peers (albeit better than chance) in categorizing observed social scenes as friendly or aggressive, irrespective of the display format (i.e., full-body videos, still images, or point-light displays). This deficiency was maintained when retested later. They were also impaired in recognizing single-person attributes, which are useful for human interaction understanding (such as judging heading-direction based on biological-motion cues, or emotional states from body-posture gestures). Thus, the comprehension of visually observed socially relevant actions and body gestures is impaired in the late-sighted. We conclude that early visual experience is necessary for developing the skills required for utilizing visual cues for social scene understanding.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225007151Social interactionSocial sciences |
| spellingShingle | Ilana Naveh Sara Attias Asael Y. Sklar Itay Ben-Zion Ehud Zohary Expert-level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experience iScience Social interaction Social sciences |
| title | Expert-level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experience |
| title_full | Expert-level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experience |
| title_fullStr | Expert-level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experience |
| title_full_unstemmed | Expert-level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experience |
| title_short | Expert-level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experience |
| title_sort | expert level understanding of social scenes requires early visual experience |
| topic | Social interaction Social sciences |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225007151 |
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