Eccentricity, but not category, organizes infant ventral temporal cortex

Abstract

Scene- and word-selective regions in adult ventral temporal cortex occupy consistent locations across individuals and align with eccentricity biases for peripheral versus central parts of the visual field, respectively. This relationship may reflect a developmental sequence in which initial preferences for visual field location influence the emergence of category-selectivity in these regions, driven by where each category appears in the visual field. To test this account, we used fMRI in awake, behaving infants aged 2–10 months, independently manipulating stimulus size (40° versus 6°) and category (scenes versus letters). We found eccentricity gradients across early visual cortex and ventral temporal cortex. Crucially, the collateral sulcus — a scene-selective, peripherally-biased region in adults — showed greater responses to big over small stimuli in infants, but no reliable preference for scenes over letters. These findings suggest that an eccentricity bias could provide a scaffold for later category specialization.