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3-171 - Face Scanning in Infancy: An Index of Speech and Language Development?

Sat, March 21, 1:55 to 3:25pm, Marriott, Floor: Level 4, Franklin Hall 2

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Face scanning in infancy is often used as an index of underlying cognitive processes. For talking faces, scanning patterns change in the first year (Lewkowicz & Hansen-Tift, 2012), but do such changes reflect speech-specific learning, like babbling, or more general learning processes (Munhall & Johnson, 2012)?

Two papers present one view on this question. Paper 1 shows that speech production abilities correlate with audiovisual matching of talking faces at 8, but not 4 months of age. Gaze to the mouth, but not the eyes, drives this perception-production correlation. Paper 2 reports 6-month-olds’ scanning of talking faces, as well as fNIRS measures from an identical task. Results suggest correlations between production abilities and gaze to the mouth, as well as between production and activation of motor-related brain areas.

Two papers present a complementary view. Six- and seven-month-olds in Paper 3 observe congruent or incongruent speech in synchrony with a talking face. Greater gaze to the mouth is seen with incongruent speech, but because stimuli are non-native, factors independent from speech perception or production experience must influence face scanning. Paper 4 examines over a hundred 8- to 16-month-olds. Greater looking to the mouth of a talking face is often seen, even for inverted faces, but surprisingly, not under conditions replicating some studies (e.g., with incongruent speech). Few relations are found between face scanning and standardized language measures.

Together, results suggest that speech perception and production experience are only two of many potential influences on infants’ scanning patterns when they observe talking faces.

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