title: Rapid categorization of natural face images in the infant right hemisphere.
abstract: Human performance at categorizing natural visual images surpasses automatic algorithms, but how and when this function arises and develops remain unanswered. We recorded scalp electrical brain activity in 4-6 months infants viewing images of objects in their natural background at a rapid rate of 6 images/second (6 Hz). Widely variable face images appearing every 5 stimuli generate an electrophysiological response over the right hemisphere exactly at 1.2 Hz (6 Hz/5). This face-selective response is absent for phase-scrambled images and therefore not due to low-level information. These findings indicate that right lateralized face-selective processes emerge well before reading acquisition in the infant brain, which can perform figure-ground segregation and generalize face-selective responses across changes in size, viewpoint, illumination as well as expression, age and gender. These observations made with a highly sensitive and objective approach open an avenue for clarifying the developmental course of natural image categorization in the human brain.
authors.affiliation: Psychological Sciences Research Institute, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: Adélaïde
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: de Heering
authors.affiliation: Psychological Sciences Research Institute, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rossion
mesh_terms: D004569:Electroencephalography; D000066499:Facial Recognition; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: face perception; human; infants; natural images; neuroscience; right hemisphere; visual categorization