title: Newborns' face recognition: role of inner and outer facial features.
abstract: Existing data indicate that newborns are able to recognize individual faces, but little is known about what perceptual cues drive this ability. The current study showed that either the inner or outer features of the face can act as sufficient cues for newborns' face recognition (Experiment 1), but the outer part of the face enjoys an advantage over the inner part (Experiment 2). Inversion of the face stimuli disrupted recognition when only the inner portion of the face was shown, but not when the whole face was fully visible or only the outer features were presented (Experiment 3). The results enhance our picture of what information newborns actually process and encode when they discriminate, learn, and recognize faces.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Italy. chiara.turati@unipd.it
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Turati
authors.forename: Viola
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Macchi Cassia
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Simion
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Leo
mesh_terms: D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology