Three experiments are described which investigated the ability of neonates to discriminate between the face of their mother and that of a strange adult female and to show face recognition. The first experiment indicated a reliable preference for the mother's face even where a control for olfactory information was used. No evidence for any effect of sex or breast vs. bottle feeding was found. A second experiment used the same procedure but substituted a visual mask for the olfactory one previously adopted. Under these conditions no evidence of preference was found. Finally, a third experiment considered the possibility that mothers were actively recruiting their own infant's attention and found that adult observers were unable reliably to distinguish mothers from strangers on the basis of any differential behaviour by mother and stranger. The conclusion is drawn that neonates can recognize their mother on the basis of visual clues alone and that these cues relate to memory for featural attributes of the mother's face rather than to attentionrecruiting behaviour on her part.The search for the limits of neonatal competence continues at a rapid pace with boundaries continually having to be redrawn in the light of fresh experimental evidence. The ontogeny of face discrimination and recognition is no exception to this general statement. It is not very many years since the weight of research indicated that, while young infants appeared to be particularly responsive to the human face, this was primarily the result of the face 'happening to embody' many of the appropriate stimulus characteristics to which infants' sensory systems are primarily attuned. Thus Schaffer (1971) amongst others argued that the face is not specialperse, in the sense that the human neonate is in any way genetically programmed to respond specifically to the human face, but rather that human sensory systems are strongly attuned to aspects such as movement (both absolute and relative), to contrast, to objects of a particular size and proximity that make relatively high-pitched noises and can operate contingently. All these attributes and more are appropriate to the human face in normal interaction and it is not therefore necessary to posit any conspecific processes (e.g. innate templates of the human face) to account for the special salience of the human face.While this argument makes a great deal of sense, there are some data which are not easily explained. Many studies have examined the ability of young infants to respond to the configuration of faces, rather than just the elements. Most of these early studies 'Requests for reprints.

Four experiments are described which investigated the role of the mother's voice in facilitating recognition of the mother's face at birth. Experiment 1 replicated our previous findings (Br. J. Dev. Psychol. 1989; 7: 3-15; The origins of human face perception by very young infants. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 1990) indicating a preference for the mother's face when a control for the mother's voice and odours was used only during the testing. A second experiment adopted the same procedures, but controlled for the mother's voice from birth through testing. The neonates were at no time exposed to their mother's voice. Under these conditions, no preference was found. Further, neonates showed only few head turns towards both the mother and the stranger during the testing. Experiment 3 looked at the number of head turns under conditions where the newborn infants were exposed to both the mother's voice and face from birth to 5 to 15 min prior to testing. Again, a strong preference for the mother's face was demonstrated. Such preference, however, vanished in Experiment 4, when neonates had no previous exposure to the mother's voice-face combination. The conclusion drawn is that a prior experience with both the mother's voice and face is necessary for the development of face recognition, and that intermodal perception is evident at birth. The neonates' ability to recognize the face of the mother is most likely to be rooted in prenatal learning of the mother's voice.

An experiment is described in which the ability of 1‐month‐old infants to recognize their mothers visually was explored with the live faces of mother and stranger presented in three different poses. The en face and half‐profile poses resulted in significant visual preferences for the mother being demonstrated, but the profile pose did not. The temporal stability of the observed memory is discussed along with potential methodological artifacts.