Pre-literate people in New Guinea and Indonesia draw specifically distorted faces, as do 'Western' dyslexics, using a paleo visual-representational mode.
Third World populations with a persisting high percentage of preliterates within individual groups draw specifically distorted patterns of the human face characteristic of 'neolithic art' to a degree negatively correlated with the accessibility of reading instruction. A subgroup of 'Western' dyslexic youths also draw these distorted face patterns, which, moreover, facilitate infants 'smiling response'. These findings suggest the persistence of a developmentally early visual representational mode which proceeds in a global way, disregarding differences in characterizing details, whether of face patterns or of lexical symbols.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001154:Art; D002648:Child; D003469:Culture; D004410:Dyslexia; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007214:Indonesia; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009512:New Guinea; D010151:Paintings; D011386:Projective Techniques; D011932:Reading; D012904:Smiling