The processing of tachistoscopically presented visual stimuli by five-month-old infants.

5-month-old infants were presented visual patterns for 100 msec followed by a 100-msec patterned masker at intervals of 0, 250, 500, and 2,000 msec after the offset of the stimulus. This procedure was repeated 45 times. Only infants in the 2,000-msec stimulus-masker interval condition significantly fixated a novel stimulus longer than the familiar stimulus. These results suggest that visual processing in infants is quite slow relative to that in older humans.