The Detection of Face-like Stimuli at the Edge of the Infant Visual Field

Abstract

Human infants are highly sensitive to social information in their visual world. In laboratory settings, researchers have mainly studied the development of social information processing using faces presented on standard computer displays, in paradigms exploring face-to-face, direct eye contact social interactions. This is a simplification of a richer visual environment in which social information derives from the wider visual field and detection involves navigating the world with eyes, head and body movements. The present study measured 9-month-old infants’ sensitivities to face-like configurations across mid-peripheral visual areas using a detection task. Upright and inverted face-like stimuli appeared at one of three eccentricities (50°, 55° or 60°) in the left and right hemifields. Detection rates at different eccentricities were measured from video recordings. Results indicated that infant performance was heterogeneous and dropped beyond 55°, with a marginal advantage for targets appearing in the left hemifield. Infants’ orienting behaviour was not influenced by the orientation of the target stimulus. These findings are key to understanding how face stimuli are perceived outside foveal regions and are informative for the design of infant paradigms involving stimulus presentation across a wider field of view, in more naturalistic visual environments.

Face pareidolia in male schizophrenia

“…This phenomenon reflects tuning to faces termed face pareidolia (from the ancient Greek παρά (para)-'next to it' and είδωλον (eidolon)-'shape, image'). In recent years, face pareidolia in face-like non-face images elicits great interest [66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78] (Fig. 1), primarily because their components do not automatically trigger face processing and, therefore, allow for a proper investigation of face tuning.…”

Offline Calibration for Infant Gaze and Head Tracking across a Wide Horizontal Visual Field

“…At this distance, the screen covered 126° horizontal FOV and enabled the presentation of visual stimuli at 60° from either side from the centre of the monitor. Notably, this approximately covered the full visual field available to infants at the tested age [ 34 , 35 ]. While most commercial eye-tracking solutions work best at a specific distance (usually between 55–70 cm), the cameras adopted here have an optimal camera–eye distance, ranging from 30 to 300 cm due to adjustable lenses and camera positioning (as claimed by the manufacturer), and thus allow for more flexible setups.…”