Infants' responses to facial stimuli during the first year of life

Presented 4 photographic facial stimuli varying in realism to approximately 120 infants within the 1st yr. of life in order to observe any developmental changes in attention to facial patterns as a function of schema development. Fixation time, smiling, vocalization, and fret/cry behaviors were observed to determine the differential effectiveness of these stimuli in elicting these responses. The fixation data varied over the 1st yr. with realistic patterns eliciting more attention in the 1st 1/2 yr. Differences in smiling and vocalization to these patterns remained invariant over age and indicated that realistic faces elicited more smiling and vocalization than distorted faces. Finally, large sex differences were apparent. The difference between these response measures suggest that classes of responses elicited by the same stimuli may be under the service of more than 1 motive. It was suggested that attention was affected by schema development while smiling and vocalizing were affected by such processes as innate releasing mechanisms or social learning. (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).