title: Orienting Toward Face-Like Stimuli in Early Childhood.
abstract: Newborn infants orient preferentially toward face-like or "protoface" stimuli and recent studies suggest similar reflexive orienting responses in adults. Little is known, however, about the operation of this mechanism in childhood. An attentional-cueing procedure was therefore developed to investigate protoface orienting in early childhood. Consistent with the extant literature, 5- to 6-year-old children (n = 25) exhibited orienting toward face-like stimuli; they responded faster when target location was cued by the appearance of a protoface stimulus than when location was cued by matched control patterns. The potential of this procedure to investigate the development of typical and atypical social perception is discussed.
authors.affiliation: King's College London.
authors.forename: Punit
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.affiliation: King's College London.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Happé
authors.affiliation: King's College London.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sowden
authors.affiliation: City University London.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.affiliation: King's College London.|University College London.
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bird
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003463:Cues; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception