The effect of early visual deprivation on the development of face processing

Abstract

We evaluated the importance of early visual input for the later development of expertise in face processing by studying 17 patients, aged 10 to 38 years, treated for bilateral congenital cataracts that deprived them of patterned visual input for the first 7 weeks or more after birth. We administered five computerized tasks that required matching faces on the basis of identity (with changed facial expression or head orientation), facial expression, gaze direction and lip reading. Compared to an age-matched control group, patients' recognition of facial identity was impaired significantly when there was a change in head orientation (e.g. from frontal to tilted up), and tended to be impaired when there was a change in facial expression (e.g. from happy to surprised). Patients performed normally when matching facial expression and direction of gaze (e.g. looking left or right), and in reading lips (e.g. pronouncing 'u' or 'a'). The results indicate that visual input during early infancy is necessary for the normal development of some aspects of face processing, and are consistent with theories postulating the importance of early visual experience (de Schonen & Mathivet, 1989; and separate neural mediation of different components of face processing (Bruce & Young, 1986).

The effects of early institutionalization on emotional face processing: evidence for sparing via an experience‐dependent mechanism

“…Support for this reasoning can be found in a study of patients with congenital cataracts who were deprived of patterned visual input in their first months of life. When tested years after deprivation, these patients were able to normally process featural information from both faces and geometric patterns, but suffered from impaired processing of configural information specific to faces (e.g., distance between the eyes; see Le Grand, Mondloch, Maurer, & Brent, 2001; Geldart, Mondloch, Maurer, de Schonen, & Brent, 2002; Nelson et al, 2006). Studies of the “other species effect” and “other race effect” also demonstrate that typically developing infants retain the ability to discriminate types of faces to which they have been exposed, but lose the ability to identify other types (Pascalis et al, 2005; Kelly et al, 2007).…”

Global processing in amblyopia: a review

“…Geldart et al (2002) investigated a group of 17 patients with a history of bilateral deprivation and found that identification of faces was impaired when the stimuli were presented with different head positions or expressions. However, matching of expressions and the ability to lip read were unimpaired (Geldart et al, 2002).…”

“…Geldart et al (2002) investigated a group of 17 patients with a history of bilateral deprivation and found that identification of faces was impaired when the stimuli were presented with different head positions or expressions. However, matching of expressions and the ability to lip read were unimpaired (Geldart et al, 2002). A subsequent study corroborated the deficit in varying head position and lighting conditions and revealed a deficit for lip reading using a more complex task (Putzar et al, 2010b).…”

Face memory deficits in patients deprived of early visual input by bilateral congenital cataracts

“…Face detection can, therefore, develop normally even in the absence of early visual input. Such patients are also as good as controls at matching faces based on the direction of eye gaze, facial expression, or sound being mouthed, at least for the gross types of discrimination that were tested, which likely require only featural processing (Geldart, Mondloch, Maurer, de Schonen, & Brent, 2002). They are also normal at matching individual faces based on the shape of their internal features or of their external contour (Le Grand, Mondloch, Maurer, & Brent, 2001;Mondloch et al, 2003), even when the feature differences include ones that are hard to detect for adults with normal vision (Mondloch, Robbins, & Maurer, 2010).…”

“…The results from cataract-reversal patients were compared to those of 24 age-matched controls with normal vision. Based on previous findings, we predicted that patients would be less sensitive than controls to the composite illusion (Le Grand et al, 2004), to feature spacing in upright human faces (Le Grand et al, 2001;Robbins et al, 2010) and to the identity of an unfamiliar face presented from different viewpoints (Geldart et al, 2002). Because these perceptual deficits match those reported in acquired prosopagnosia, we also suspected that patients would be significantly impaired in the tests of face memory (Famous Faces Task, Cambridge Face Memory test) despite the absence of complaints about their face recognition abilities (Prosopagnosic Questionnaire).…”