Face perception Flashcards
define sensation
info about environment picked up by sensory receptors and transmitted to brain
define perception
How we understand the events, objects and people in our environment
explain the development of visual acuity
Poor at birth, rapid increase in first 6 months
Near adult levels by 1
explain visual scanning younger than 2 months
cannot smoothly track objects
explain visual scanning at 1 month
focus on limited features of shape
explain visual scanning at 2 months
begin to focus of internal features
colour vision in newborns
between white and red
colour vision in 1 month olds
longer at brighter, bold colours
when is colour vision close to adult level
4 months
explain a preference test
- Two stimuli presented
- Measure how long infant looks at each
If preference, discrimination between two
explain a habituation task
Show interesting stimulus repeatedly - infant loses interest eventually
- Shown new stimulus
If new interest shown, infant can tell the difference
how is conditioning used to measure face perception
Repeatedly reward target behaviour
Infant becomes habituated to stimulus
Stimulus is altered
what can we infer from faces
- Species
- Sex
- Race
- Identity
- Mood
Truthfulness
what did Fanz find about innatev face preference
infants aged 1-15 week olds preferred looking at complex patterns
what did Maura and Barrera find about innate face preference
1 month - no difference in looking times
2 months - looked longer at natural face
how did Goren test innate face preference
used moving stimuli instead of static stimuli
what did Goren find about innate face preference
newborns tracked schematic face over other two
what did Johnson find about innate face preference
by 3 months, infants no longer tracked the face more
what do Johnson’s findings suggest about innate face preference
a 2 process model - `CONSPEC AND CONLERN
what is the CONSPEC aspect of a two process model
early system biases infants to orient towards faces
what is the CONLERN aspect of the two process model
later taken over by mature system and more precise recognition (no longer interested in plain face shapes)
what are the known newborn abilities of face perception
- Recognize identity of novel individuals
- Recognise eye gaze
- Recognise expressions
- Prefer attractive face
-Discriminate mother’s face
what did Pascalis find in his research about faces and what does this suggest
Preference for mothers face disappeared when outside of face and hairline masked - use outer features to identify
what did Sugita find about innate face preference
Monkeys not exposed to faces for first months of life and still preferred them
