Abstract
We sought to elucidate the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of face processing, in adults and infants, by manipulating either the featural or configural information within the face. Two different experiments are reported. In these experiments, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from the scalp while adult, 8-month-old, and 4-month-old participants completed configural-change and featural-change face tasks. The infants also completed a behavioral visual paired-comparison task with featural and configural face changes. ERP results reveal hemispheric differences in processing featural but not configural changes for the N170 in adults. Furthermore, featural and configural changes are processed differently within the right and left hemispheres. The right hemisphere N170 is significantly greater for configural compared to featural changes. The left hemisphere N170, however, exhibits the opposite effect. Infant data suggest that similar to adults, 8-month-old, but not 4-month-old participants, exhibit similar hemispheric differences between featural and configural changes for the P400 component. Behavioral results suggest increased sensitivity to both featural and configural face changes in 8-month-olds compared to 4-month-olds.
Highlights
A recent model of the development of face recognition posits that infants mold their face processing system on the basis of exposure to the specific kinds of faces they encounter (Nelson 2001, 2003)
Results of the overall amplitude and latency effects across both configural and featural tasks revealed no amplitude or latency differences when participants viewed the familiarized face, the unfamiliar face, and the altered familiarized face within each task. These findings are consistent with several past reports that suggest that the negatively peaked component occurring around 170 ms (N170) is aface detector' and is not sensitive to changes across faces (Bentin et al 1996; Bentin and Deouell 2000; Sagiv and Bentin 2001; Carmel and Bentin 2002)
Results of the difference-wave analyses reveal important differences between configural and featural processing, suggesting that the N170 is influenced by changes in the configural and featural information within a face
Summary
A recent model of the development of face recognition posits that infants mold their face processing system on the basis of exposure to the specific kinds of faces they encounter (Nelson 2001, 2003). Comes an improved sensitivity when recognizing the most commonly experienced faces and a lack of sensitivity when recognizing and discriminating less commonly experienced faces Support for this theory comes from research on theother-race' andother-species' effects, as well as research on perceptual expertise. Results of this study indicate that infants who are given experience with monkey faces sustain the ability to discriminate monkey faces at 9 months of age Combined, these results support the importance of perceptual learning about faces, occurring early in development, but the nature and mechanisms influencing this learning are not well specified
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