Abstract
We have discovered that the preferential detection of motion by an infant combined with the stationary strobic photoreceptor stimulus of a spinning segmented ring (using resolution acuity rather than recognition acuity) can be used as a precise and efficient methodology for measuring infant acuity. The spinning segmented ring can be either black segments with equally sized white gaps or other paired color combinations such as red/gray, green/gray, blue/gray, blue/black, or green/white among other permutations. When a dual configuration of identical segmented rings is presented, with only ONE of the rings as spinning, the smallest segmented ring (either left or right and regardless of the direction of spin) detected as spinning is the acuity endpoint. Previous acuity tests using the strobic stimulus of a stationary segmented ring (primary black/white segments on a gray background) have demonstrated a high degree of precision (6x) and efficiency (4x) versus static-letter tests, but preliminary tests with infants demonstrated that the dual black/white-on-gray format was too sophisticated for infant (primitive) visual systems. That format was simplified to have only ONE spinning ring with black (and white) segments on a white background at either the left or right periphery of the computer screen. The simpler format discovered that the infant would preferentially look at the spinning ring regardless of which side of the screen it was located, and continue to track the left or right location of the spinning ring until the stimulus of the white gaps between the black segments became smaller than the Minimum Area of Resolution.