There is currently no agreement as to how specific or general are the mechanisms underlying newborns' face preferences. We address this issue by manipulating the contrast polarity of schematic and naturalistic face-related images and assessing the preferences of newborns. We find that for both schematic and naturalistic face images, the contrast polarity is important. Newborns did not show a preference for an upright face-related image unless it was composed of darker areas around the eyes and mouth. This result is consistent with either sensitivity to the shadowed areas of a face with overhead (natural) illumination and͞or to the detection of eye contact.eye contact ͉ face processing

The ability of newborns to discriminate and respond to different emotional facial expressions remains controversial. We conducted three experiments in which we tested newborns’ preferences, and their ability to discriminate between neutral, fearful, and happy facial expressions, using visual preference and habituation procedures. In the first two experiments, no evidence was found that newborns discriminate, or show a preference between, a fearful and a neutral face. In the third experiment, newborns looked significantly longer at a happy facial expression than a fearful one. We raise the possibility that this preference reflects experience acquired over the first few days of life. These results show that at least some expressions are discriminated and preferred in newborns only a few days old.

From birth, infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in direct eye contact. In adults, direct gaze is known to modulate the processing of faces, including the recognition of individuals. In the present study we investigate whether direction of gaze has any effect on face recognition in fourmonth-old infants. Four-month infants were shown faces with both direct and averted gaze, and subsequently given a preference test involving the same face and a novel one. A novelty preference during test was only found following initial exposure to a face with direct gaze. Further, face recognition was also generally enhanced for faces with both direct and with averted gaze when the infants started the task with the direct gaze condition. Together, these results indicate that the direction of the gaze modulates face recognition in early infancy.

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The ability to decode facial expressions is an important component of social interaction and functioning. This ability is even more fundamental early in life, prior to the development of verbal communication. However, it is still unclear whether newborns can detect, discriminate and process facial expressions, and, if so, what the mechanisms underlying this ability are. In this study, we extend the investigation of perceived emotional expression by manipulating gaze direction with different facial expressions. Specifically, newborns were presented with faces displaying neutral, fearful, or happy facial expressions accompanied with direct or averted gaze, and tested in a visual preference paradigm. Four experiments were conducted in which different combinations of expression and gaze were used. However, only in the fourth experiment did newborns show a visual preference for a specific emotional display; they looked significantly longer at a happy face than a neutral one only when both were accompanied with direct gaze. These results provide support for the advantage of happy facial expressions in the development of a face processing system and suggest that this preference reflects experience acquired during the first few days after birth

Faces are important for non-verbal communication in daily life, and eye gaze direction provides important information for adult-infant interaction. Four-month-old infants and adults better recognize faces when accompanied with direct gaze, suggesting a special status of 'eye contact'. Whether mutual gaze plays a role in face recognition from birth, or whether it requires expertise, is investigated in this paper. We conducted a between subjects design, for a total of four experiments, two involving habituation (1a, 1b) and two involving preference tests (2a, 2b), to investigate newborns' ability to recognize faces when gaze direction is manipulated. We predicted that a face accompanied with direct gaze would be better recognized by newborns. In contrast, we expected no evidence of identity recognition when newborns were familiarized with a face with averted gaze. According with our expectations, newborns were able to recognize a face identity when previously familiarized with direct gaze, but not with averted gaze. However, this effect was face identity-specific. Overall, our results suggest that direct gaze can modulate face processing and affects preferences and face identity learning in newborns. Copyright r 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Key words: newborns; face recognition; gaze direction Given their communicative importance, eyes are a central characteristic of faces. Information from the eye region is important for different functions in social interaction, such as the automatic shifting of attention (Driver et al.,

In this study, 4-month-old infants' and adults' spontaneous preferences for emotional and neutral displays with direct and averted gaze are investigated using visual preference paradigms. Specifically, by presenting two approach-oriented emotions (happiness and anger) and two avoidance-oriented emotions (fear and sadness), we asked whether the pattern of emotion-gaze interaction suggested by the shared signal hypothesis (SSH) would also be found with this paradigm. Both age groups demonstrated an ability to discern the approach-and avoidance-oriented emotions, matching them with direct and averted gaze, respectively. Nonetheless, infants showed a greater sensitivity for the congruent emotion-gaze combination in the approach-oriented emotions, while adults were equally sensitive to the gaze-expression congruence for both the approach-and avoidance-oriented emotions. In a follow-up experiment, infants showed no preference for direct or averted gaze in the context of neutral faces. We conclude that the SSH may have validity from infancy, gradually extending from approach-oriented emotions to avoidance-oriented emotions over the course of development.Over the last thirty years many studies have investigated the development of the ability to discriminate and recognize faces, and to process their internal features, such as eye gaze, expression, and identity. One topic that has been relatively neglected, however, is how specific combinations of eye gaze and emotional expression interact. In one study with adults, Adams and Kleck (2005) presented neutral faces with direct and averted gaze to adults who were asked to rate the faces on four emotion scales (anger, fear, sadness, and joy). Gaze direction was found to influence the perceived emotion conveyed by the neutral faces; participants attributed anger and joy to neutral faces