The cortical scene processing network emerges in infancy, prior to independent navigation experience.
Overview
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, United Kingdom
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
- Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Abstract
Sighted people rely on vision to recognize and navigate the local environment. By adulthood, human cortex contains at least three regions that respond selectively to visual scene information, but it remains unknown when or how these regions develop. One hypothesis is that development of scene selectivity depends on passive exposure to the low-level visual statistics of scenes. Another hypothesis is that development depends on active experience using scene information to plan and guide navigation. Using ecological momentary assessment, we measured the quantity of forward-facing ego-motion and active navigation that infants experienced in the first months of life. By age 5 mo, infants cumulatively experienced around 340 h of forward facing ego-motion, almost exclusively passive. Next we used functional MRI in infants aged 2 to 9 mo to measure neural responses to scenes. Awake infants watched videos of ego-motion through real-world scenes, as well as videos of faces, objects, and scrambled videos. We found stronger responses to scenes than control conditions in the location of all three cortical scene regions. Responses in infant scene regions a) were dissociable from those in nearby face and object regions; b) could not be fully explained by low-level visual features; and c) were found even in subsamples of infants with no locomotor experience. Thus, the basic signature of scene selectivity emerges prior to independent navigation and with limited passive visual exposure to the diagnostic visual statistics of scenes.
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
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Data
Datasets cited
- osf:jnx5a — at OSF; found in the text, “Stimuli.”
- osf:vk7aw — at OSF; found in “Data, Materials, and Software Availability”
Data, Materials, and Software Availability
Anonymized ssfROI analysis results and whole-brain map data have been deposited in OSF for the preregistered (https://
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Versions
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Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record
Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 7 authors, 5 keywords, 9 MeSH terms, 1 funder, 80 references.
Cite
This paper
Kamps, F. S., Chen, E. M., Du, H., Kosakowski, H. L., Fuchs, A., Kanwisher, N., & Saxe, R. (2026). The cortical scene processing network emerges in infancy, prior to independent navigation experience. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 123(31), e2513126123. https://
BibTeX
@article{kamps2026cortic
author = {Kamps, Frederik S. and Chen, Emily M. and Du, Haoyu and Kosakowski, Heather L. and Fuchs, Ariel and Kanwisher, Nancy and Saxe, Rebecca},
title = {{The cortical scene processing network emerges in infancy, prior to independent navigation experience}},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
volume = {123},
number = {31},
pages = {e2513126123},
publisher = {National Academy of Sciences},
issn = {0027-8424},
doi = {10.1073/
url = {https://
pmid = {42520112},
pmcid = {PMC13439116}
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
AU - Kamps, Frederik S.
AU - Chen, Emily M.
AU - Du, Haoyu
AU - Kosakowski, Heather L.
AU - Fuchs, Ariel
AU - Kanwisher, Nancy
AU - Saxe, Rebecca
TI - The cortical scene processing network emerges in infancy, prior to independent navigation experience
T2 - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
J2 - Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/
VL - 123
IS - 31
SP - e2513126123
SN - 0027-8424
PB - National Academy of Sciences
DO - 10.1073/
UR - https://
LA - en
ER -
CSL-JSON
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