Development of Visual Systems for Faces and Objects: Further Evidence for Prolonged Development of the Face System

Abstract

BackgroundThe development of face and object processing has attracted much attention; however, studies that directly compare processing of both visual categories across age are rare. In the present study, we compared the developmental trajectories of face and object processing in younger children (8–10 years), older children (11–13 years), adolescents (14–16 years), and adults (20–37).Methodology/Principal FindingsWe used a congruency paradigm in which subjects compared the internal features of two stimuli, while the (unattended) external features either agreed or disagreed independent of the identity of the internal features. We found a continuous increase in matching accuracy for faces and watches across childhood and adolescence, with different magnitudes for both visual categories. In watch perception, adult levels were reached at the age of 14–16, but not in face perception. The effect of context and inversion, as measures of holistic and configural processing, were clearly restricted to faces in all age groups. This finding suggests that different mechanisms are involved in face and object perception at any age tested. Moreover, the modulation of context and inversion effects by exposure duration was strongly age-dependent, with the strongest age-related differences found for brief timings below 140 ms.Conclusions/SignificanceThe results of the present study suggest prolonged development of face-specific processing up to young adulthood. The improvement in face processing is qualitatively different from the improvement of general perceptual and cognitive ability.

Developmental changes in analytic and holistic processes in face perception

“…To our knowledge, however, this has not been demonstrated using a serial versus parallel processing framework. This finding is also consistent with attenuated face inversion effects in younger children both in the present study and the literature ( Carey and Diamond, 1994 ; Schwarzer, 2000 ; Brace et al, 2001 ; Joseph et al, 2006 ; Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2014 ). Younger children process faces in a similar analytical manner as non-faces ( Schwarzer, 2002 ); therefore, inversion has less effect on performance because inversion does not disrupt piecemeal processing.…”

“…One reason that face inversion effects have been intensely investigated in developmental studies is that many studies have replicated the findings by Carey and Diamond that younger children show weaker face inversion effects than older children and adults ( Schwarzer, 2000 ; Brace et al, 2001 ; Joseph et al, 2006 ; Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2014 ). Presumably, if children perceive faces as a collection of features rather than as an integrated gestalt, then inversion will not disrupt processing of the individual features.…”

Holistic face perception in young and older adults: effects of feedback and attentional demand

“…Moreover, a direct and intuitive measure of response bias can be defined by referring to the relative frequencies for the errors of both kinds (Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2014a ). For the same/different experiment the “same” response category is commonly defined as the target category (e.g., Richler et al, 2011 ).…”

Developmental Commonalities between Object and Face Recognition in Adolescence

“…The interpretation of the findings of Cassia et al (2009) and Meinhardt-Injac et al (2014) is complicated by the fact that for non-face stimuli no holistic processing was observed in adult observers. A possible explanation could be the requirement of structural long-term representations for holistic effects to become manifest ( Davidoff and Donnelly, 1990 ; Donnelly and Davidoff, 1999 ).…”

“…By contrast, no evidence of holistic processing was observed for non-face objects in any of the tested age groups. Meinhardt-Injac et al (2014) used a context congruency paradigm to compare the processing of faces and non-faces (here: watch faces) in children aged 8–16 years and adults. For both types of stimuli, observers had to make a same/different judgment regarding the internal features of two test stimuli while their (unattended) external features differed in terms of congruency – they could either agree or disagree.…”