A Domain-General Theory of the Development of Perceptual Discrimination.

In this paper we posit a domain-general principle that may account for the improvement that is observed in several aspects of perceptual development over the first years of life. Development during this time frame is characterized by a process of perceptual narrowing, whereby the discrimination of perceptual information is broadly tuned at first, and then narrows to more selective levels with experience. This process appears to cut across both the visual and auditory modalities, and may reflect the development of a common neural architecture.