Abstract
Recently, human adults face studies had indicated that the facial angle was one of the important factor in face recognition; Bruce & Valentine (1987) showed that 3/4 views had a superiority in face recognition, and Pike et al. (1997) indicated that the rotation information could facilitate face recognition. On the contrary, there were no studies to show such effects in infants. Fagan (1979) showed that 7-month-old infants could discriminate unfamiliar faces on different pose. In this study we investigated whether the 3/4 view effect and the effect of the rotation information would in exist infants around these age.
Eleven female face images were taken by steps of 9 degrees from the frontal view to the profile view. These face images were presented in regular frame-order (the rotation condition) or in random frame-order (the random condition). First, infants were familiarized with a female face either in the rotation or the random condition for 80 sec. Following the familiarization, infants were tested with a pair of familiar and unfamiliar female 3/4 views for two 10 sec trials. These 3/4 views were novel views, that is opposite views, from the familiarization.
Results showed that only 6- to 8-month-olds could identify familiar female on the novel 3/4 view in the rotation condition. It suggests that the rotation information promotes recognition of the novel 3/4 view around 7-month-olds. The rotation information could help to produce the 3D structural images (Pike et al., 1997). These infants might have such 3D structural image of the face.
Supported by RISTEX, Japan Science and Technology Agency, and a Grant-in-Aid for scientific research (15500172) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.