Recognition of the Mother's Face by Six-Month-Old Infants: A Neurobehavioral Study
Abstract
Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 6-month-olds as each watched pictures of the mother's face and a stranger's face. The ERPs differed for the 2 faces, but the pattern of neural activity elicited depended on whether the mother and stranger looked different (Experiment I, n= 22) or alike (Experiment 3, n= 22). In contrast, when different 6-month-olds were each shown 1 of these 44 pairs, of face their ERPs did not differ between the 2 faces (Experiment 2, n= 22, and Experiment4, n= 22). In a visual preference test of recognition, infants showed no evidence of recognizing the mother's face (Experiment 5, n= 32). Together, these results suggest that infants are able to recognize their mothers' faces but (1) the neural processes accompanying recognition depend on the difficulty with which mother can be discriminated from stranger and (2) under the conditions investigated in this study, FRPs are a more sensitive measure of recognition than is looking time.
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The Nc is a negative-going deflection that peaks around 500 ms after the onset of a particular stimulus.
“The Nc is a negative-going deflection that peaks around 500 ms after the onset of a particular stimulus [37].”
Because the Nc is modulated by novelty and stimulus salience, and is larger (more negative) to stimuli presented during physiologically defined states of attention, the Nc is thought to reflect attention engagement.
“Because the Nc is modulated by novelty and stimulus salience [37], and is larger (more negative) to stimuli presented during physiologically defined states of attention [39], the Nc is thought to reflect attention engagement [40].”
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- Authors
- de Haan, M., & Nelson, C. A.
- Affiliations
- The University of Minnesota
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Corresponding author
- Nelson, Charles A
- ORCID
- Nelson, Charles A
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1997-04-01
- Volume
- 68
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 187-210
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8624
- OpenAlex
- W2099402565
- Cited by
- 353
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 2.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Cognitive Neuroscience Society
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS-32979, R01NS032979)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD07151, T32HD007151)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Face recognition and analysis
- Keywords
- face recognition (cognition), infant face perception, event-related potentials, face discrimination, visual preference, looking time, 6-month-old infants
- MeSH terms
- Arousal, Attention, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Psychology, Child, Discrimination Learning, Electroencephalography, Evoked Potentials, Visual, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Mother-Child Relations, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Reaction Time, Mental Recall
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