Abstract
Newborn infants orient preferentially toward face‐like or “protoface” stimuli and recent studies suggest similar reflexive orienting responses in adults. Little is known, however, about the operation of this mechanism in childhood. An attentional‐cueing procedure was therefore developed to investigate protoface orienting in early childhood. Consistent with the extant literature, 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children (n = 25) exhibited orienting toward face‐like stimuli; they responded faster when target location was cued by the appearance of a protoface stimulus than when location was cued by matched control patterns. The potential of this procedure to investigate the development of typical and atypical social perception is discussed.
Highlights
Newborn infants orient preferentially toward face-like or “protoface” stimuli and recent studies suggest similar reflexive orienting responses in adults
Consistent with the extant literature, 5- to 6-year-old children (n = 25) exhibited orienting toward face-like stimuli; they responded faster when target location was cued by the appearance of a protoface stimulus than when location was cued by matched control patterns
As the protoface and control patterns remained task irrelevant, these results indicate reflexive protofacial orienting in adults; their attention was captured by the protoface, even when it was unrelated to ongoing task performance
Summary
Newborn infants orient preferentially toward face-like or “protoface” stimuli and recent studies suggest similar reflexive orienting responses in adults. Consistent with the extant literature, 5- to 6-year-old children (n = 25) exhibited orienting toward face-like stimuli; they responded faster when target location was cued by the appearance of a protoface stimulus than when location was cued by matched control patterns. The potential of this procedure to investigate the development of typical and atypical social perception is discussed. Experimental evidence suggests that orienting to face-like stimuli may be underpinned by subcortical neural structures (Farroni et al, 1999; Simion, Valenza, Umilta, & Barba, 1998; cf. Grossman & Johnson, 2014; though see Nelson, 2001)
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