Specialization of Neural Mechanisms Underlying Face Recognition in Human Infants

• Published in: Journal of cognitive neuroscience Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 199 - 209
• Main Authors: Haan, Michelle de, Pascalis, Olivier, Johnson, Mark H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209, USA MIT Press 15.02.2002; MIT Press Journals, The
• Subjects: Adult; Age Factors; Babies; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Child development; Cognition & reasoning; Developmental psychology; Electrophysiology; Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology; Face; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Infant; Male; Neurology; Newborn. Infant; Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology; Photic Stimulation; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time - physiology; Human; Hemispheric specialization; Central nervous system; Electrophysiology; Spatial orientation; Infant; Cognition; Vision; Adult; Perception; Cognitive development; Face; Laterality; Event evoked potential; Recognition; Brain (vertebrata)
• ISSN: 0898-929X; 1530-8898
• DOI: 10.1162/089892902317236849

Newborn infants respond preferentially to simple face-like patterns, raising the possibility that the face-specific regions identified in the adult cortex are functioning from birth. We sought to evaluate this hypothesis by characterizing the specificity of infants' electrocortical responses to faces in two ways: (1) comparing responses to faces of humans with those to faces of nonhuman primates; and 2) comparing responses to upright and inverted faces. Adults' face-responsive N170 event-related potential (ERP) component showed specificity to upright human faces that was not observable at any point in the ERPs of infants. A putative “infant N170” did show sensitivity to the species of the face, but the orientation of the face did not influence processing until a later stage. These findings suggest a process of gradual specialization of cortical face processing systems during postnatal development.