3-160 - The development of face processing in early childhood - Experiences and neural tuning

Session Type: Paper Session

Integrative Statement

Faces are ubiquitous in our visual environment and offer important social information. Young infants are highly interested in faces and able to discriminate between individual faces within hours after birth. This constructed symposium brings together several lines of research investigating children’s early exposure to, discrimination and recognition of, and neural processing of face. The first paper reports that young infants enjoy longer bouts of face exposure followed by a steady decline with increasing age. The second paper conducted a meta-analytic review on infants’ ability to discriminate faces and the role played by exposure and experience. The third paper examined the neural correlates of emotion discrimination in infancy. And finally, the fourth paper explored how neural sensitivity to low-level perceptual features present in faces develops in later childhood. Together, these studies describe how face processing skills emerge and develop over time.

Sub Unit

• Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Chair

• Margaret Moulson, Ryerson University

Individual Presentations

• Extended face views: a privilege enjoyed by youngest infants - Presenting Author: Swapnaa Jayaraman, Indiana University; Linda Smith, Indiana University

• A Meta-Analytic Review on Infant Own- and Other-Race Face Discrimination - Presenting Author: Alexandra Marquis, Ryerson University; Nicole A Sugden, Ryerson University

• Neural sensitivity to horizontal orientations in face images develops in childhood - Presenting Author: Benjamin Balas, North Dakota State University; Alyson Saville, North Dakota State University; Jamie Schmidt, North Dakota State University

• Investigation of facial expression discrimination by 7-month-old infants using Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) - Presenting Author: Alexandra Marquis, Ryerson University; Margaret Moulson, Ryerson University