The late onset of visual texture segmentation in kittens

Texture segmentation was studied developmentally in kittens using a two-alternative forced choice jumping stand paradigm. None of 15 kittens tested solved a texture segmentation task based on orientation contrast prior to 83 days of age, despite their rapid acquisition age, despite their rapid acquisition of an analogous luminance-based image segmentation problem. However, three kittens showed rapid acquisition of the texture segmentation task when the textures were composed of non-oriented elements (dots and annuli), reaching criterion performance by 52-59 days of age. A control experiment demonstrated that kittens can discriminate between vertical and horizontal gratings comparable in line width to the oriented texture elements as early as 53 days of age. The surprisingly late appearance of orientation-based texture segmentation is considered in the context of current models of texture segmentation and is compared to recent reports of a similar finding in human infants [3,54].