The Development of Face Processing in Infancy & Early Childhood

Newborn Face Preferences

• Babies prefer to look at faces compared to other objects as soon as they're born. A study published in the May 2011 issue of "Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society" found that young infants preferred human faces to animal faces, but didn't show the same preferences for human bodies and faces together over animals until around 3.5 months of age. A baby's ability to distinguish between faces is nearly as well-developed as an adult's at age 4 months, a Stanford University study published in the December 2012 issue of the "Journal of Vision" found.

Face Discrimination

• Newborns prefer certain faces to others -- and mom's face to everyone else's, whether he sees her in person or in videos, a British article published in the March - July 2001 issue of "Infant and Child Development" explained. But it depends on the angle of the face; in an Italian study published in the March 2008 issue of "Cognition," babies could distinguish between faces seen in full-face and 3/4 views, but not when seen in profile versus full-face or 3/4 views.

Other Race Effect

• At birth, a baby doesn't show a preference for faces of any particular race, according to a French article published in the May 2011 issue of "PLOS One." And before the age of 6 months, a baby can differentiate equally well between faces of their own race and those of people of other races. But after age 9 months, the baby can differentiate between the faces of people of his own racial group better than those of other races. Children adopted into families of a different race between the ages of 3 and 9 are better at discriminating between faces of the same race as their adopted family than their own, a French study published in the June 2005 issue of "Psychological Science" reported.

Other Species Effect

• Up to a certain age, around 6 months, babies can differentiate between the faces of different species, such as monkeys. After the age of 9 months, they lose that ability, according to the May 2011 PLOS One article. This indicates that the age of 9 months is important for face recognition, because perceptual narrowing decreases the ability to discriminate between all but more familiar types of faces. However, when exposed frequently to different monkey faces identified by individual names, the babies maintained their ability to differentiate between the monkeys at age 9 months.