Birthweight predicts individual differences in adult face recognition ability.

Sarah Bate,Natalie Mestry,Rachel J Bennetts,Maddie Atkinson,Peter J Hills

doi:10.1111/bjop.12480

Abstract

It has long been known that premature birth and/or low birthweight can lead to general difficulties in cognitive and emotional functioning throughout childhood. However, the influence of these factors on more specific processes has seldom been addressed, despite their potential to account for wide individual differences in performance that often appear innate. Here, we examined the influence of gestation and birthweight on adults' face perception and face memory skills. Performance on both sub-processes was predicted by birthweight and birthweight-for-gestation, but not gestation alone. Evidence was also found for the domain-specificity of these effects: No perinatal measure correlated with performance on object perception or memory tasks, but they were related to the size of the face inversion effect on the perceptual test. This evidence indicates a novel, very early influence on individual differences in face recognition ability, which persists into adulthood, influences face-processing strategy itself, and may be domain-specific.

Highlights

It is possible that very early perinatal influences affect the development of face recognition ability in some individuals
The most influential work to date that supports this hypothesis suggests that early visual experience with faces is imperative: Geldart, Mondloch, Maurer, de Schonen, and Brent (2002) studied 17 individuals aged between 10 and 38 years who had been treated for bilateral congenital cataracts
Le Grand, Mondloch, Maurer, and Brent (2004) found that these individuals showed no evidence of configural or holistic processing, implicating impairment to facespecific mechanisms

Summary

Introduction

It is possible that very early perinatal influences affect the development of face recognition ability in some individuals. The most influential work to date that supports this hypothesis suggests that early visual experience with faces is imperative: Geldart, Mondloch, Maurer, de Schonen, and Brent (2002) studied 17 individuals aged between 10 and 38 years who had been treated for bilateral congenital cataracts These participants had been deprived of patterned visual input for at least the first 7 weeks of life and displayed impaired recognition of facial identity (but not other aspects of facial processing, such as expression recognition) when tested in later childhood or adulthood. There is evidence that these abnormalities persist into later childhood: Perez-Roche et al (2017) found that 5- to 15-year-old children born with a low-for-gestation birthweight (

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