title: The lasting effects of process-specific versus stimulus-specific learning during infancy.
abstract: The capacity to tell the difference between two faces within an infrequently experienced face group (e.g. other species, other race) declines from 6 to 9 months of age unless infants learn to match these faces with individual-level names. Similarly, the use of individual-level labels can also facilitate differentiation of a group of non-face objects (strollers). This early learning leads to increased neural specialization for previously unfamiliar face or object groups. The current investigation aimed to determine whether early conceptual learning between 6 and 9 months leads to sustained behavioral advantages and neural changes in these same children at 4-6 years of age. Results suggest that relative to a control group of children with no previous training and to children with infant category-level naming experience, children with early individual-level training exhibited faster response times to human faces. Further, individual-level training with a face group - but not an object group - led to more adult-like neural responses for human faces. These results suggest that early individual-level learning results in long-lasting process-specific effects, which benefit categories that continue to be perceived and recognized at the individual level (e.g. human faces).
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
authors.forename: Hillary
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hadley
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
authors.forename: Charisse B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Pickron
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
authors.forename: Lisa S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Scott
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007858:Learning; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time