Rhythmic visual stimulation (RVS), the periodic presentation of visual stimuli to elicit a rhythmic brain response, is increasingly applied to reveal insights into early neurocognitive development. Our systematic review identified 69 studies applying RVS in 0- to 6-year-olds. RVS has long been used to study the development of the visual system and applications have more recently been expanded to uncover higher cognitive functions in the developing brain, including overt and covert attention, face and object perception, numeral cognition, and predictive processing. These insights are owed to the unique benefits of RVS, such as the targeted frequency and stimulus-specific neural responses, as well as a remarkable signal-to-noise ratio. Yet, neural mechanisms underlying the RVS response are still poorly understood. We discuss critical challenges and avenues for future research, and the unique potentials the method holds. With this review, we provide a resource for researchers interested in the breadth of developmental RVS research and hope to inspire the future use of this cutting-edge method in developmental cognitive neuroscience.

节律性视觉刺激（RVS）是周期性呈现视觉刺激以引发节律性大脑反应，越来越多地应用于揭示早期神经认知发展的见解。我们的系统回顾确定了 69 项在 0 至 6 岁儿童中应用 RVS 的研究。RVS 长期以来一直用于研究视觉系统的发育，最近其应用已扩展到揭示发育中的大脑中的高级认知功能，包括显性和隐性注意力、面部和物体感知、数字认知和预测处理。这些见解归功于 RVS 的独特优势，例如目标频率和特定刺激的神经反应，以及卓越的信噪比。然而，RVS 反应背后的神经机制仍然知之甚少。我们讨论了未来研究的关键挑战和途径，以及该方法所具有的独特潜力。通过这篇综述，我们为对发育性 RVS 研究广度感兴趣的研究人员提供了资源，并希望激发这种尖端方法在发育性认知神经科学中的未来使用。