Abstract
The face is one of the most complex stimuli experienced by the human infant. It displays complex types of movement, is three-dimensional, contains areas of high contrast, contains features that appear in invariant and changing spatial relationships both within and across faces, and provides both visual and auditory stimulation. The newborn infant’s ability to detect and respond to the visually-specified characteristics of the face are reviewed, with a view to asking whether there is an innate predisposition to respond to the face other than as a collection of salient stimuli.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Anteil, S.E., and Caron, A.J. (1985) ‘Neonatal perception of spatial relationships’, Infant Behavior and Development 8, 15–23.
Atkinson, J., Hood, B., Wattam-Bell, J., Anker, S., and Tricklebank, J. (1988) ‘Development of orientation discrimination in infancy’, Perception 17, 587–595.
Banks, M.S., and Salapatek, P. (1981) ‘Infant pattern vision: A new approach based on the contrast sensitivity function’, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 31, 1–45.
Bower, T.G.R. (1966) ‘The visual world of infants’, Scientific American 215(6), 80–92.
Bushneil, I.W.R., Sai, F. and Mullin, J.T. (1989) ‘Neonatal recognition of the mother’s face’, British Journal of Developmental Psychology 7, 3–15.
Field, T.M., Cohen, D., Garcia, R. and Greenberg, R. (1984) ‘Mother-stranger face discrimination by the newborn’, Infant Behavior and Development 7, 19–25.
Gibson, E.J. (1970) ‘The development of perception as an adaptive process’, American Scientist 58, 98–107.
Goren, C.C., Sarty, M., and Wu, P.Y.K. (1975) ‘Visual following and pattern discrimination of face-like stimuli by newborn infants’, Pediatrics 56, 544–549.
Johnson, M. and Morton, J. (1991) ‘Biology and Cognitive Development: The Case for Face Recognition’, Basil Blackwell Limited, Oxford.
Morison, V., and Slater, A.M. (1985) ‘Contrast and spatial frequency components in new-born visual preferences’, Perception 14, 345–348.
Slater, A.M. and Morison, V. (1985) ‘Shape constancy and slant perception at birth’, Perception 14, 337–344.
Slater, A.M., Mattock, A., and Brown, E. (1990) ‘Size constancy at birth: Newborn infants’ responses to retinal and real size’, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 49, 314–322.
Slater, A.M., Mattock, A., Brown E., and Bremner, J.G. (1991) ‘Form perception at birth: Cohen and Younger (1984) revisited’, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 51, 395–406.
Slater, A.M., Mattock, A., Brown, E., Burnham, D. and Young, A.W. (1991) ‘Visual processing of stimulus compounds in newborn babies’, Perception 20, 29–33.
Slater, A.M., Morison, V., and Rose, D. (1983) ‘Perception of shape by the newborn baby’, British Journal of Developmental Psychology 1, 135–142.
Slater, A.M., Morison, V. and Rose, D. (1984) ‘Habituation in the new-born’, Infant Behavior and Development 7, 183–200.
Slater, A.M., Morison, V. and Somers, M. (1988) ‘Orientation discrimination and cortical function in the human newborn’, Perception 17, 597–602.
Slater, A.M., Morison, V., Town, C. and Rose, D. (1985) ‘Movement perception and identity constancy in the new-born baby’, British Journal of Developmental Psychology 3, 211–220.
Slater, A.M., Rose, D. and Morison, V. (1984) ‘Infants’ perception of similarities and differences between two- and three-dimensional stimuli’, British Journal of Developmental Psychology 2, 287–294.
Walton, G.E., Bower, N.J.A. and Bower, T.G.R. (1992) ‘Recognition of familiar faces by newborns’, Infant Behavior and Development 15, 265–269.
Yonas, A. and Granrud, C.E. (1985) ‘Development of visual space perception in young infants’, in J. Mehler and R. Fox (eds.), Neonate Cognition: Beyond the Blooming, Buzzing Confusion, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Slater, A.M. (1993). Visual Perceptual Abilities at Birth: Implications for Face Perception. In: de Boysson-Bardies, B., de Schonen, S., Jusczyk, P., McNeilage, P., Morton, J. (eds) Developmental Neurocognition: Speech and Face Processing in the First Year of Life. NATO ASI Series, vol 69. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8234-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8234-6_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4251-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-8234-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive