Article Document Academic Article Information Content Entity Journal Article Continuant Continuant Entity Entity Generically Dependent Continuant 2025-05-06T10:42:09 RDF description of Face-specific identification impairments following sight-providing treatment may be alleviated by an initial period of low visual acuity - http://repository.healthpartners.com/individual/document-rn38245 Pediatrics Eye Diseases Face-specific identification impairments following sight-providing treatment may be alleviated by an initial period of low visual acuity 40754 public 14 1 23557 document-rn38245 10.1038/s41598-024-67949-z 2024-12-14T22:07:15.519-06:00 <p>Identifying faces requires configural processing of visual information. We previously proposed that the poor visual acuity experienced by newborns in their first year of life lays the groundwork for such configural processing by forcing integration over larger spatial fields. This hypothesis predicts that children treated for congenital cataracts late in life will exhibit persistent impairments in face- but not object-identification, because they begin their visual journey with higher than newborn acuity. This would not be the case for patients whose pretreatment condition has allowed for initial low acuity vision, like that of a newborn. Here, we test this prediction by assessing the development of facial identification skill in three groups: patients treated for congenital cataracts whose pretreatment visual acuity was worse than that of a newborn, patients whose pretreatment acuity was better than that of a newborn, and age-matched controls. We find that while both patient groups show significant gains in object-identification, the emergence of face identification is determined by pretreatment acuity: patients with pre-operative acuity worse than a newborn did not show any improvements on face-identification tasks despite years of visual experience, whereas those with pretreatment acuity comparable to a newborn improved on both the object- and face-identification tasks. These findings not only answer our research question but also provide new insights into the role of early visual acuity in facial identification development. We discuss these results in the context of both typical and atypical visual development.<p> Scientific Reports