title: Three-month-olds' visual preference for faces and its underlying visual processing mechanisms.
abstract: This study was aimed at investigating the face preference phenomenon and its underlying mechanisms at 3 months of age. Using an eye-tracker apparatus, Experiment 1 demonstrated that 3-month-olds prefer natural face images to unnatural ones, replicating and extending previous evidence obtained with schematic facelike stimuli. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the general mechanisms that induce face preference in newborns could not explain the same phenomenon at 3 months of age, when infants are attracted by perceptual cues more specific to faces. This suggests that signs of a process of cognitive specialization are already present in 3-month-olds' visual behavior toward faces.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Svilluppo e della Socializzazione, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padova, Italy. chiara.turati@unipd.it
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Turati
authors.forename: Eloisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Valenza
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Leo
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Simion
mesh_terms: D002755:Choice Behavior; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes; D014796:Visual Perception