Can human eyes prevent perceptual narrowing for monkey faces in human infants?

Abstract

Perceptual narrowing has been observed in human infants for monkey faces: 6-month-olds can discriminate between them, whereas older infants from 9 months of age display difficulty discriminating between them. The difficulty infants from 9 months have processing monkey faces has not been clearly identified. It could be due to the structural characteristics of monkey faces, particularly the key facial features that differ from human faces. The current study aimed to investigate whether the information conveyed by the eyes is of importance. We examined whether the presence of Caucasian human eyes in monkey faces allows recognition to be maintained in 6-month-olds and facilitates recognition in 9- and 12-month-olds. Our results revealed that the presence of human eyes in monkey faces maintains recognition for those faces at 6 months of age and partially facilitates recognition of those faces at 9 months of age, but not at 12 months of age. The findings are interpreted in the context of perceptual narrowing and suggest that the attenuation of processing of other-species faces is not reversed by the presence of human eyes.

Face detection in 2‐ to 6‐month‐old infants is influenced by gaze direction and species

“…While previous studies reported own‐species bias for face detection by 6 months (Jakobsen et al, ), our findings suggest that own‐species bias in face detection may occur earlier, like face preference (Heron‐Delaney et al, ). Indeed, by 3 months, infants attend more to nonhuman primate faces when they contain human eyes compared to primate eyes (Damon et al, ; Dupierrix et al, ).…”