Although the literature is inconsistent concerning why the development of motion perception in children takes so long, most studies find that children improve with development. Global motion perception is believed to mature between the age of 7 and 12 years (Armstrong, Maurer, & Lewis,
2009; Ellemberg, Lewis, Hong Liu, & Maurer,
1999; Gunn et al.,
2002; Parrish,
2005). Studies have used random dot kinematograms (RDK) to examine the development of global motion perception by measuring motion coherence thresholds (MCTs) (Manning, Aagten-Murphy, & Pellicano,
2012; Parrish,
2005). MCTs estimate the smallest proportion of signal dots required for direction identification. Sensitivity to complex patterns of global motion, such as expansion and rotation, develop later in childhood (Baumberger & Fluckiger,
2004) and some are not fully developed even in teenagers, depending on the stimulus and parameters that are used (Armstrong et al.,
2009; Atkinson, Braddick, & Moar,
1977; Baumberger & Fluckiger,
2004; Ellemberg et al.,
2004; Falkenberg, Dutton, & Simpson,
2010; Parrish, Giaschi, Boden, & Dougherty,
2005; Regal,
1981).Very young infants are not able to perform forced choice psychophysical experiments. To study the development of motion perception, several authors have therefore measured involuntary directional eye movements elicited by moving stimuli. With this technique, it has been shown that sensitivity to the direction of moving patterns is present as early as 3 months of age (Dobkins, Fine, Hsueh, & Vitten,
2004) and, when corrected for contrast sensitivity, show little further development into adulthood (Blumenthal, Bosworth, & Dobkins,
2013). The observation that chromatic segmentation cues can improve motion perception without changing directional eye movements suggests that the eye movement response is largely driven by low level motion signals and is unaffected by attentional factors (Dobkins & Sampath,
2008).