We used habituation to investigate 3-month-olds' abilities to discriminate and recognize smiling and frowning expressions posed by the mother or by a female stranger. Infants discriminated between the expressions and recognized which expression they had seen during the habituation trials; they did so whether the expressions were posed by the mother or by the stranger. However, when the expressions were posed by the mother, more infants showed the discrimination, and boys looked at her pictures longer than girls. These differences suggest that infants' previous experiences with faces influence their perceptions of the facial expressions.
The techniques of visual preference and of habituation were used to test the ability of 1- and 2-month-olds to discriminate various arrangements of the features of the human face. We showed infants schematic drawings of a human face with the features (1) arranged naturally, (2) arranged symmetrically but scrambled, and (3) arranged asymmetrically and scrambled. 2-month-olds discriminated among all 3 arrangements; 1-month-olds appeared not to discriminate between any of them 2-month-olds also showed a preference for a natural arrangement of the features, but 1-month-olds did not. Thus, by 2 months infants may recognize how the features of a natural human face are arranged and generalize that knowledge to schematic faces.
We used habituation to investigate 3-month-olds' abilities to discriminate and recognize smiling and frowning expressions posed by the mother or by a female stranger. Infants discriminated between the expressions and recognized which expression they had seen during the habituation trials; they did so whether the expressions were posed by the mother or by the stranger. However, when the expressions were posed by the mother, more infants showed the discrimination, and boys looked at her pictures longer than girls. These differences suggest that infants' previous experiences with faces influence their perceptions of the facial expressions.
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