Perceptual Narrowing

Perceptual narrowing is a developmental process during which the brain uses environmental experiences to shape perceptual abilities. This process improves the perception of things that people experience often and causes them to experience a decline in the ability to perceive some things to which they are not often exposed. This phenomenon is a result of neuroplasticity, including Hebbian learning and synaptic pruning. Through these mechanisms, neural pathways that are more consistently used are strengthened, making them more efficient, while those pathways that are unused become less efficient. This process is most evident during sensitive periods of development. The prevailing theory is that human infants are born with the ability to sense a wide variety of stimuli, and as they age, they begin to selectively narrow these perceptions by categorizing them in a more socio-culturally relevant way. Most of the research in this area focuses on facial discrimination and phoneme distinction in human infants. Perceptual narrowing has also been implicated in synaesthesia.

Read more about Perceptual Narrowing:  Phoneme Distinction, Neural Mechanisms, Synaesthesia and Perceptual Narrowing, See Also