Infants attend to second-order relational properties of faces

Abstract

Two experiments investigated whether 7-month-old infants attend to the spatial distance measurements relating internal features of the human face. A visual preference paradigm was used, in which two versions of the same female face (one either lengthened or shortened, and one nonmodified) were presented simultaneously. In Experiment 1, infants looked longer at the nonmodified faces, which were determined to match the average distance relationships found in a sample of faces drawn from the same population. Longer looking times for modified faces were found in Experiment 2, in which the nonmodified faces were unusually long and the modified faces conformed to average distance measurements. It is proposed that infants' attention to the spatial relations of internal face features is an optimal tool for lifelong face recognition.

Development of Face Recognition: Infancy to Early Childhood

“…In contrast to the infancy literature which suggests that infants demonstrate more advanced processing of faces, such as processing based on second-order relations (Bhatt, et al, 2005;Thompson, et al, 2001) and prototype formation (de Haan, et al, 2001;Walton & Bower, 1993), research with children suggests that they have poor face recognition skills (Brace, et al, 2001;Mondloch, et al, 2006). Brace, et al (2001) concluded that some children between the ages of 2 and 4 years used featural rather than configural processing of faces based on their failure to show the inversion effect and faster response times to recognize inverted faces over upright faces within a storybook format.…”

“…Research suggests that infants learn to discriminate and process faces very early in postnatal development Pascalis & de Schonen, 1994;Turati, et al, 2006). Infants demonstrate abilities to process faces on the basis of first- (Goren, et al, 1975;Simion, et al, 2002) and second-order relations (Bhatt, et al, 2005;Thompson, et al, 2001), as well as holistic information (Cohen & Cashon, 2001;Schwarzer, et al, 2007). These findings, as demonstrated through habituation, VPC, and novelty preference procedures, suggest that the development of face expertise emerges rapidly across the first year of postnatal life.…”

“…Thompson, et al (2001) found that 7-month-old infants preferred to look to a photograph of an unfamiliar woman's face with "normal" second-order relations rather than with manipulated spacing between the eyes and the nose and the mouth. The authors concluded that 7-month-old infants are capable of perceiving faces configurally.…”

“…For example, infants demonstrate the ability to form prototypes (de Haan et al, 2001;Rubenstein, et al, 1999;Walton & Bower, 1993), recognize unfamiliar faces (Bahrick, Lickliter, Vaillant, Shuman, & Castellanos, 2004;Pascalis, de Haan, Nelson, & de Schonen, 1998;Slater & Quinn, 2001), and process faces on the basis of second-order relations (i.e., a more advanced basis from which to perceive faces; Cohen & Cashon, 2001;Schwarzer, Zauner, & Jovanovic, 2007;Thompson, Madrid, Westbrook, & Johnston, 2001). The child face perception literature typically investigates processing styles and face recognition using methods such as a storybook format and eyewitness identification tasks.…”

“…Exposure time and memory load are also important factors to assess and control for when investigating how face perception and recognition change from infancy to early childhood. Many studies investigating infant face perception and recognition use extensive familiarization to a single face and test with a single novel face (see Cohen, DeLoache, & Pearl 1977;Pascalis, et al, 1998;Thompson, et al, 2001). On the other hand, studies investigating face recognition in preschoolers often present many different faces for brief exposure times (see Brace, Hole, Kemp, Pike, Van Duuren, & Norgate, 2001;McKone & Boyer, 2006;Mondloch, Leis, & Maurer, 2006;.…”