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Updated: Jul 8, 2026

Separation of Mouse Embryonic Facial Ectoderm and Mesenchyme
Published on: April 12, 2013
Is face processing species-specific during the first year of life?
Olivier Pascalis1, Michelle de Haan, Charles A Nelson
1Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TP, UK. o.pascalis@sheffield.ac.uk
Abstract:
Between 6 and 10 months of age, the infant's ability to discriminate among native speech sounds improves, whereas the same ability to discriminate among foreign speech sounds decreases. Our study aimed to determine whether this perceptual narrowing is unique to language or might also apply to face processing. We tested discrimination of human and monkey faces by 6-month-olds, 9-month-olds, and adults, using the visual paired-comparison procedure. Only the youngest group showed discrimination between individuals of both species; older infants and adults only showed evidence of discrimination of their own species. These results suggest that the "perceptual narrowing" phenomenon may represent a more general change in neural networks involved in early cognition.
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