Section: Research

Ann Skoczenski, Ph.D.

Faculty Appointment(s) In:
   Psychiatry

Other Affiliation(s):
   Program in Neuroscience
   Shriver Center

Visual Neural Development in Human Infants

Dr. Skoczenski's research is designed to advance our understanding of visual neural development in human infants, through a series of experiments that record and analyze infants' (age 1-12 months) electrophysiological responses to visual patterns. These experiments will build upon each other to address the following questions: (a) what is the developmental timecourse of visual position sensitivity (the ability to discern differences in the relative position of pattern elements)? (b) how does sensitivity to luminance contrast and pattern size affect visual position sensitivity at different ages? (c) How is the development of orientation sensitivity related to the development of relative position sensitivity? The general hypothesis motivating these experiments is that the development of specificity of infants' neural responses proceeds from basic responses (e.g. detection of contrast) to more complex responses (e.g. discrimination of relative position), and that the development of these complex responses reflects maturation of cortical interactions between different basic mechanisms.

Ongoing Projects

Phone: (781) 642-0252
E-mail: Ann.Skoczenski@umassmed.edu

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