18-Month-olds can perceive Mooney faces

The development of Mooney face perception in 6- to 11-month-old infants

Mooney faces are two-tone facial images with degraded individual features (e.g., eyes and mouth) and retain only shadows and highlights. Previous research has reported that even young infants can detect faces from Mooney face images despite the degraded features. In Experiment 1, we tested the upright preference for Mooney face images with the features degraded at four levels, from Level 1 (slightly degraded) to Level 4 (extremely degraded). The results indicated that infants showed a significant visual preference for upright images over inverted images under the Level 1 (slightly degraded) and Level 2 (moderately degraded) conditions. In addition, in Experiment 2 we confirmed that infants showed an upright face preference for the original non-degraded face images. The results of the two experiments suggest that although infants aged 6 to 11 months consistently showed an upright face preference even for Mooney face images with relatively modest degradedness, their ability to detect face figures from Mooney face figures was still immature.

The role of scenic context on upright face preference in infancy

Scenic information plays an important role in face processing, whereas it has received limited attention in the field of developmental research. In the current study, we investigated whether infants, like adults, utilize scenic information for face processing by the preferential-looking method. In Experiment 1, we examined 4-5 and 6-7-month-olds' visual preferences for upright faces compared to inverted faces in two surrounding scene conditions: intact (in which a face occurs in an intact scene) and scrambled (in which a face occurs in a jumbled scene). We found that 6- to 7-month-olds preferred the upright face in the intact scene, but not in the scrambled scene. Meanwhile, 4- to 5-month-olds showed significant upright face preference in both scenes. The results of Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that the lack of preference for upright faces in the scrambled scene in 6- to 7-month-olds resulted from more distraction by the scrambledness of the image than occurs with 4- to 5-month-olds, by showing no developmental changes in preference either for the scrambled images or the intact images when faces did not appear. Our results suggest that infants aged 6 months or more utilize scenic information for face processing.

Infants' recognition of their mothers' faces in facial drawings

This study examined the development of ability to recognize familiar face in drawings in infants aged 6-8 months. In Experiment 1, we investigated infants' recognition of their mothers' faces by testing their visual preference for their mother's face over a stranger's face under three conditions: photographs, cartoons produced by online software that simplifies and enhances the contours of facial features of line drawings, and veridical line drawings. We found that 7- and 8-month-old infants showed a significant preference for their mother's face in photographs and cartoons, but not in veridical line drawings. In contrast, 6-month-old infants preferred their mother's face only in photographs. In Experiment 2, we investigated a visual preference for an upright face over an inverted face for cartoons and veridical line drawings in 6- to 8-month-old infants, finding that infants aged older than 6 months showed the inversion effect in face preference in both cartoons and veridical line drawings. Our results imply that the ability to utilize the enhanced information of a face to recognize familiar faces may develop aged around 7 months of age.

Age-dependent face detection and face categorization performance

Empirical studies on the development of face processing skills with age show inconsistent patterns concerning qualitative vs. quantitative changes over time or the age range for peak cognitive performance. In the present study, we tested the proficiency in face detection and face categorization with a large sample of participants (N = 312; age range: 2-88 yrs). As test objects, we used so-called Mooney faces, two-tone (black and white) images of faces lacking critical information of a local, featural and relational nature, reflecting difficult real world face processing conditions. We found that performance in the assessment of gender and age from Mooney faces increases up to about age 15, and decreases from 65 years on. The implications of these findings are discussed in the light of classic and recent findings from face development literature.

Prenatal exposure to a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congener influences fixation duration on biological motion at 4-months-old: a preliminary study

Adverse effects of prenatal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners on postnatal brain development have been reported in a number of previous studies. However, few studies have examined the effects of prenatal PCB exposure on early social development. The present study sought to increase understanding of the neurotoxicity of PCBs by examining the relationship between PCB congener concentrations in umbilical cord blood and fixation patterns when observing upright and inverted biological motion (BM) at four-months after birth. The development of the ability to recognize BM stimuli is considered a hallmark of socio-cognitive development. The results revealed a link between dioxin-like PCB #118 concentration and fixation pattern. Specifically, four-month-olds with a low-level of prenatal exposure to PCB #118 exhibited a preference for the upright BM over inverted BM, whereas those with a relatively high-level of exposure did not. This finding supports the proposal that prenatal PCB exposure impairs the development of social functioning, and indicates the importance of congener-specific analysis in the risk analysis of the adverse effects of PCB exposure on the brain development.

Resolution of spatial and temporal visual attention in infants with fragile X syndrome

Fragile X syndrome is the most common cause of inherited intellectual impairment and the most common single-gene cause of autism. Individuals with fragile X syndrome present with a neurobehavioural phenotype that includes selective deficits in spatiotemporal visual perception associated with neural processing in frontal-parietal networks of the brain. The goal of the current study was to examine whether reduced resolution of spatial and/or temporal visual attention may underlie perceptual deficits related to fragile X syndrome. Eye tracking was used to psychophysically measure the limits of spatial and temporal attention in infants with fragile X syndrome and age-matched neurotypically developing infants. Results from these experiments revealed that infants with fragile X syndrome experience drastically reduced resolution of temporal attention in a genetic dose-sensitive manner, but have a spatial resolution of attention that is not impaired. Coarse temporal attention could have significant knock-on effects for the development of perceptual, cognitive and motor abilities in individuals with the disorder.

Do infants recognize the Arcimboldo images as faces? Behavioral and near-infrared spectroscopic study

Arcimboldo images induce the perception of faces when shown upright despite the fact that only nonfacial objects such as vegetables and fruits are painted. In the current study, we examined whether infants recognize a face in the Arcimboldo images by using the preferential looking technique and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). In the first experiment, we measured looking preference between upright and inverted Arcimboldo images among 5- and 6-month-olds and 7- and 8-month-olds. We hypothesized that if infants perceive the Arcimboldo images as faces, they would prefer the upright images to the inverted ones. We found that only 7- and 8-month-olds significantly preferred upright images, suggesting that they could perceive the Arcimboldo images as faces. In the second experiment, we measured hemodynamic responses using NIRS. Based on the behavioral data, we hypothesized that 7- and 8-month-olds would show different neural activity for upright and inverted Arcimboldo images, as do adults. Therefore, we measured hemodynamic responses in 7- and 8-month-olds while they were looking at upright and inverted Arcimboldo images. Their responses were then compared with the baseline activation during the presentation of individual vegetables. We found that the concentration of oxyhemoglobin increased in the left temporal area during the presentation of the upright images compared with the baseline during the presentation of vegetables. The results of the two experiments suggest that (a) the ability to recognize the upright Arcimboldo images as faces develops at around 7 or 8 months of age and (b) processing of the upright Arcimboldo images is related to the left temporal area of the brain.

Development of synchrony between activity patterns of mother-infant pair from 4 to 18 months after birth

Motor activities of interacting agents get temporally coordinated to form synchronized actions. Such activity synchrony is observed in several mammalian species and is supposed to play vital roles in human social interactions. Therefore, it has long been proposed that the activity patterns of mother and infant get temporally synchronized. However, few studies to date have empirically investigated the developmental course of such synchrony. The present study simultaneously measured motor activities of mother-infant pairs for about 3.5 consecutive days by actigraph, and investigated the developmental course of mother-infant synchrony. The multiple regression analysis revealed an increase of mother-infant synchrony from 4 to 18 months after birth, giving support to the notion that activity patterns of mother and infant mutually entrain each other through the course of development.

Spatial resolution of conscious visual perception in infants

Humans' conscious awareness of objects in their visual periphery is limited. This limit is not entirely the result of reduced visual acuity. Rather, it is primarily caused by crowding--the difficulty identifying an object when it is surrounded by clutter. The effect of crowding on visual awareness in infants has yet to be explored. Do infants, for example, have a fine-grained "spotlight," as adults do, or do infants have a diffuse "lantern" that sets limits on what they can register in their visual periphery? We designed an eye-tracking paradigm to psychophysically measure crowding in infants between 6 months and 15 months of age. We showed infants pairs of faces at three eccentricities, in the presence or absence of flankers, and recorded infants' first saccade from central fixation to either face. Infants could discriminate faces in the periphery, and flankers impaired this ability. We found that the effective spatial resolution of infants' visual perception increased with age, but was only half that of adults.