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Visual Following and Pattern Discrimination of Face-like Stimuli by Newborn Infants
Abstract
Forty newborn infants, median age 9 minutes, turned their eyes and heads to follow a series of moving stimuli. Responsiveness was significantly greater to a proper face pattern than to either of two scrambled versions of the same stimulus or to a blank. The demonstration of such consistent response differences suggests that visual discriminations are being made at this early age. These results imply that organized visual perception ion is an unlearned capacity of the human organism. The preference for the proper face stimulus by infants who had not seen a real face prior to testing suggests that an unlearned or "evolved" responsiveness to faces may be present in human neonates.
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“Human infants show sensitivity to faces even before being exposed to them (58, 59)”
From Deepfake detection by human crowds, machines, and machine-informed crowds (2022) · cites this paper as [58]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Goren, C. C., Sarty, M., & Wu, P. Y. K.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- Venue
- Pediatrics
- Publisher
- American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
- Published
- 1975-10-01
- Volume
- 56
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 544-549
- ISSN
- 0031-4005 (ISSN-L)
- 1098-4275
- OpenAlex
- W2132752688
- Cited by
- 1,158
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 58 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 50 · 2020: 90 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 42 · 2015: 50 · 2014: 45 · 2013: 38 · 2012: 40
- FWCI
- 3.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- PEDIATRICS (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- neonates, face preference, pattern discrimination, face recognition (cognition), visual perception
- MeSH terms
- Face, Female, Form Perception, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Male, Pattern Recognition, Visual
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