The Effects of Early Experience on Face Recognition: An Event‐Related Potential Study of Institutionalized Children in Romania

Abstract

Data are reported from 3 groups of children residing in Bucharest, Romania. Face recognition in currently institutionalized, previously institutionalized, and never-institutionalized children was assessed at 3 time points: preintervention (n = 121), 30 months of age (n = 99), and 42 months of age (n = 77). Children watched photographs of caregiver and stranger faces while event-related potentials were recorded. Results demonstrate that institutionalized children show pervasive cortical hypoarousal in response to faces and that foster care is somewhat effective in remediating this deficit by 42 months of age. All 3 groups of children distinguished between the familiar and unfamiliar faces. These results have the potential to inform an understanding of the role of early experience in the development of the neural systems that subserve face recognition.Faces are arguably the most important visual stimulus used in human social communication. Faces provide a wealth of information about other individuals, including identity, sex, age, focus of attention, and emotional state. Most adults are experts at processing faces, and quickly and effortlessly decipher information from faces during social exchanges. Although young infants have rudimentary face processing capabilities (e.g., they can recognize their mother within the first days of life and can discriminate basic emotions within the first months of life; Field, 1983;Pascalis, de Schonen, Morton, Derulle, & Fabre-Grenet, 1995), children do not show adult-like speed and accuracy in face perception until adolescence. Although the behavioral development of face perception has been well characterized, less is known about the development of the neural systems underlying face perception. Clearly, the origins of behavioral change lie in the development of these neural systems.Previous research has demonstrated that adults' face expertise is subserved by a distributed network of brain areas that are preferentially involved in face processing, including the ''fusiform face area'' within the fusiform gyrus, the superior temporal sulcus, amygdala, and areas of the prefrontal cortex (Adolphs, 2002;Haxby, Hoffman, & Gobbini, 2002;Iidaka et al., 2001;Kanwisher, McDermott, & Chun, 1997). Fewer studies have examined the development of these neural systems, largely due to the methodological limitations involved in using neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging with developing populations (although near infrared spectroscopy shows promise for use with infants and young children; see Otsuka et al., 2007;Tzourio-Mazoyer et al., 2002). However, event-related potentials (ERPs), aThe work reported in this article was supported by funds from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. We thank Gwen Gordon for assistance in data management; Don Guthrie for statistical consultation; Sebastian Koga for overseeing the project in Romania; Hermi Woodward and the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development for input regarding ...

Neural Correlates of Face Familiarity in Institutionally Reared Children With Distinctive, Atypical Social Behavior

“…Our results are in agreement with those chronicled in the BEIP sample at baseline, 30-and 42-months assessments; specifically, in this work institutionalized children showed a smaller P1 than those in the never-institutionalized group, with children randomized to foster-care evidencing intermediate P1 amplitudes between these other two groups (Moulson et al, 2009a;Moulson et al, 2009b). The current work extends such literature, as well as our own previous report of within-group comparisons (XXX 2015), in showing that the reductions in P1 amplitudeo be noted, however, is that differences betweenamong the institutionalized children, when compared and to the 29 family-reared group, was attributable to the two groups of children with symptoms of socio-emotional disturbance, that is, the indiscriminate and the inhibited groups.…”

“…Most such work has been EEG and ERP research related to institutional rearing, mostly carried out on the Romanian sample from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) provides evidence of cortical hypoactivation among institutionalized children (BEIP; e.g.,. Marshall, Fox, & the BEIP Core Group, 2004;Moulson, Fox, Zeanah, & Nelson, 2009a;Moulson, Westerlund, Fox, Zeanah, & Nelson, 2009b;Parker et al, 2005a;Parker, Nelson, & The BEIP Core Group, 2005b;Vanderwert, Marshall, Nelson, Zeanah, & Fox, 2010), but -but see Tarullo, Garvin, and Gunnar (2011), studying for a notable exception of a study with a different sample, reported similar results. -provides evidence of cortical hypoactivation among institutionalized children.…”

“…These results differ from those of the BEIP, where a reduced N170 amplitude was found at the baseline assessment of the institutionalized children relative to their family-reared counterparts (when children were 6-30 months old; Parker et al, 2005a;Parker, Nelson, & The BEIP Core Group, 2007), but was not evident at subsequent follow-ups with either the facefamiliarity or the emotional-expressions tasks (Moulson et al, 2009b;Nelson, Westerlund, McDermott, Zeanah, & Fox, 2013). Such cross-study inconsistency might be explained by the fact that the current study included a wider age range than did the BEIP, with the effects under consideration being detected in the older children.…”

“…The cited ERP studies of face processing further also indicate that despite the general pattern of hypoactivation in the case of institutionalized children, their differential processing of unfamiliar and familiar faces is no different from that proved identical to that of the family-reared controls (Moulson et al, 2009b;Parker et al, 2005a). That is, both groups of children showed neural signs of differentiation between the two types of faces.…”

“…Considered together, tThese findings suggest that the previously reported hypoactivation in institutionalized children, on average (Moulson et al, 2009a;Moulson et al, 2009b;Parker et al, 2005aParker et al, , 2005b, is most characteristic of those who have developed this atypical profile of engagement with adults. IB, characterized by an indiscriminate approach of strangers, is one of the most frequent and persistent effects of early institutional rearing, associated with long-term impairments in social development (Hodges & Tizard, 1989;Kreppner et al, 2010).…”