Developmental change in infant categorization: the perception of correlations among facial features.

Previous studies indicated that the ability to detect correlations among attributes emerges between 7 and 10 months of age. In the present study, the generality of this developmental transition was examined. Using an infant-control habituation procedure, 48 7- and 10-month-old infants were tested for the perception of correlations among basic facial features. The developmental effects were replicated. Only the 10-month-old infants demonstrated their sensitivity to the pattern of correlation by generalizing to a novel face that preserved the experienced pattern of correlation, while showing increased attention to a face in which the pattern of correlation was violated. 7-month-old infants generalized to both test stimuli containing familiar features, regardless of the status of the correlation. Implications for face perception and the processing of categorical information are discussed.

[1]  S. de Schonen,et al.  Hemispheric asymmetry in a face discrimination task in infants. , 1990, Child development.

[2]  P. Salapatek,et al.  Infant visual perception , 1983 .

[3]  D. Maurer,et al.  Discrimination of Strangers by the Three-Month-Old. , 1981 .

[4]  B. J. Winer.  Statistical Principles in Experimental Design , 1992 .

[5]  B. Younger.  The segregation of items into categories by ten-month-old infants. , 1985, Child development.

[6]  Eleanor Rosch,et al.  Principles of Categorization , 1978 .

[7]  W. R. Garner.  The Processing of Information and Structure , 1974 .

[8]  J. Fagan.  Infants' recognition of invariant features of faces , 1976 .

[9]  B. Younger,et al.  Development of Categorization Skills: Changes in the Nature or Structure of Infant Form Categories?. , 1988 .

[10]  P. C. Bomba,et al.  The development of orientation categories between 2 and 4 months of age. , 1984, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[11]  D. Medin,et al.  Family resemblance, conceptual cohesiveness, and category construction , 1987, Cognitive Psychology.

[12]  C. C. Goren,et al.  Visual following and pattern discrimination of face-like stimuli by newborn infants. , 1975, Pediatrics.

[13]  Wayne D. Gray,et al.  Basic objects in natural categories , 1976, Cognitive Psychology.

[14]  A. Young,et al.  ARE FACES SPECIAL , 1989 .

[15]  Edward E. Smith,et al.  Correlated properties in natural categories , 1984 .

[16]  S. Carey,et al.  Why faces are and are not special: an effect of expertise. , 1986 .

[17]  F. D. Horowitz,et al.  Basic level categorization in seven- and nine-month-old infants , 1986, Journal of Child Language.

[18]  Barbara A. Younger,et al.  Developmental change in infants' perception of correlations among attributes. , 1986, Child development.

[19]  B. Younger,et al.  Infants' detection of correlations among feature categories. , 1990, Child development.

[20]  L. Cohen,et al.  Infant perception of correlations among attributes. , 1983, Child development.

[21]  Mark H. Johnson,et al.  CONSPEC and CONLERN: a two-process theory of infant face recognition. , 1991, Psychological review.

[22]  Kelly L. Madole,et al.  Infants' object examining: Habituation and categorization ☆ ☆☆ , 1991 .

[23]  Mark W. Altom,et al.  Correlated symptoms and simulated medical classification. , 1982, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[24]  L. Cohen,et al.  Concept acquisition in the human infant. , 1979, Child development.

[25]  R. Yin.  Looking at Upside-down Faces , 1969 .

[26]  M. Bornstein,et al.  Color vision and hue categorization in young human infants. , 1976, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[27]  E. R. Siqueland,et al.  The nature and structure of infant form categories , 1983 .

[28]  R. Kestenbaum,et al.  The recognition and categorization of upright and inverted emotional expressions by 7-month-old infants , 1990 .