Face preference at birth.

Abstract

Four experiments are reported that were aimed at elucidating some of the controversial issues concerning the preference for facelike patterns in newboms. The experiments were devised to contrast the original and the revised versions of the sensory hypothesis and the structural hypothesis as accounts of face preference in newborns. Experiments 1A and IB supported the structural hypothesis by showing a visual preference for the stimulus for which components were located in the correct arrangement for a human face. Experiment 2 supported the sensory hypothesis by showing a visual preference for stimuli that were designed to have the optimal spatial frequency components for the newborn visual system. Experiment 3 showed that babies directed attention to a facelike pattern also when it was presented simultaneously with a nonfacelike stimulus with optimal spatial frequency for the newborn visual system.

The Human First Hypothesis: Identification of Conspecifics and Individuation of Objects in the Young Infant

“…Furthermore, even for infants, faces are a special kind of stimulus (e.g., Johnson & Morton, 1991;Valenza, Simion, Cassia, & Umiltà, 1996).…”

Infant viewing of social scenes is under genetic control and is atypical in autism

“… Long before infants reach, crawl, or walk, they explore the world by looking: they look to learn and to engage 1 , giving preferential attention to social stimuli including faces 2 , face-like stimuli 3 , and biological motion 4 . This capacity—social visual engagement—shapes typical infant development from birth 5 and is pathognomonically impaired in children affected by autism 6 .…”

Exploring the Nature of Joint Attention Impairments in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Associated Social and Cognitive Skills

“…In typical development, children are inherently rewarded to participate in social interactions, in which they learn about social and communicative skills. This tendency seems to be reflected in a social preference, which children are showing from the day they are born (e.g., Cassia, Valenza, Simion, & Leo, 2008;Farroni et al, 2005;Valenza, Simion, Cassia, & Umiltà, 1996) and that stimulates them to look at people, and to prefer social stimuli like voices and faces over nonsocial stimuli. Children and adults with ASD do not show this typical tendency to orient towards social stimuli and also tend to use different face scanning patterns (Celani, 2002;Dawson et al, 2004;Fletcher-Watson, Benson, Frank, Leekam, & Findlay, 2009;Jones, Carr, & Klin, 2008;Maestro et al, 2005;Pelphrey et al, 2002;Sasson et al, 2007).…”