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Science 17 May 2002:
Vol. 296. no. 5571, pp. 1321 - 1323
DOI: 10.1126/science.1070223
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Reports

Is Face Processing Species-Specific During the First Year of Life?

Olivier Pascalis,1* Michelle de Haan,2 Charles A. Nelson3

Between 6 and 10 months of age, the infant's ability to discriminate among native speech sounds improves, whereas the same ability to discriminate among foreign speech sounds decreases. Our study aimed to determine whether this perceptual narrowing is unique to language or might also apply to face processing. We tested discrimination of human and monkey faces by 6-month-olds, 9-month-olds, and adults, using the visual paired-comparison procedure. Only the youngest group showed discrimination between individuals of both species; older infants and adults only showed evidence of discrimination of their own species. These results suggest that the "perceptual narrowing" phenomenon may represent a more general change in neural networks involved in early cognition.

1 Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TP, UK.
2 Institute of Child Health, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, University College London, London WC1N 2AP UK.
3 Institute of Child Development, Department of Pediatrics, and Center for Neurobehavioral Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: o.pascalis{at}sheffield.ac.uk

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