No abstract

Past research demonstrated that newborns looked longer at live faces and two-dimensional still images of the mother than at the faces and images of strangers (Bushnell, Sai, & Mullin, 1989; Field, Cohen, Garcia, & Greenberg, 1985; Walton, Bower, & Bower, 1992). This study examined schema (prototype) theory as a basis for newborn's preference for the mother's face by creating composite (prototype) faces with a pixel averaging technique. Results obtained with a preferential operant-sucking procedure indicated that formation of a representation of faces was rapid. Newborns preferred to look at a composite of presented faces rather than a composite of unseen faces on the first-look presentation of each. The effect faded over the duration of the experiment.

No abstract

It has been proposed that speech is specified by the eye, the ear, and even the skin. Kuhl and Meltzoff (1984) showed that 4-month-olds could lip-read to an extent. Given the age of the infants, it was not clear whether this was a learned skill or a by-product of the primary auditory process. This paper presents evidence that neonate infants (less than 33 h) show virtually identical patterns of intermodal interaction as do 4-month-olds. Since they are neonates, it is unlikely that learning was involved. The results indicate that human speech is specified by both eye and ear at an age when built-in structural sensitivities provide the most plausible explanation.

No abstract