Presentation Information
[O2-05]Visual causality detection capabilities in individuals treated for prolonged early-onset blindness
*Marin Vogelsang1, Lukas Vogelsang1, Priti Gupta2, Stutee Narang2, Purva Sethi2, Suma Ganesh2, Pawan Sinha1 (1. MIT (United States of America), 2. Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital (India))
Keywords:
causality detection,spatiotemporal processing,late sight onset,congenital blindness
The ability to identify causal relationships between visual objects critically depends on the detection of temporal regularities in the environment. Albert Michotte’s pioneering studies demonstrated that certain relationships between visual events lead observers to perceive them as causally linked. The ability to attribute causality in such displays emerges early in development. This raises important questions about the roots of this proficiency. Specifically, does this capacity depend on early visual experience with inter-object interactions, or is it resilient to prolonged early-onset visual deprivation? Here, we studied a unique group of children from rural India who were born blind and received sight-restoring surgeries late in childhood. These children viewed animations akin to Michotte’s, designed to assess their ability to discriminate causal from non-causal interactions. Stimuli included one causal event ("direct launching", where one moving disk hits another, causing it to immediately continue along the same trajectory) and three non-causal events, introducing a spatial gap, a temporal gap, or both between the disks. Participants viewed one causal and one non-causal animation and selected the sequence depicting the causal interaction. Results reveal low performance immediately post-surgery but rapid and marked improvements within the first postoperative month. Interestingly, a similar trajectory of rapid improvement was observed in a separate experiment conducted with the same children, probing their sensitivity to the Gestalt principle of common fate, in which they judged the direction of visual elements moving together. To sum, these findings highlight the resilience of visual causality detection based on temporal regularities to early-onset visual deprivation, underscore the remarkable plasticity of the visual system into late childhood, and suggest a possible role for temporal processing in facilitating rapid visual development post-surgery.