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The Thatcher illusion and face processing in infancy.

Evelin Bertin1, Ramesh S Bhatt

  • 1University of Kentucky, USA. ebertin@eva.mpg.de

Developmental Science
|October 16, 2004
PubMed
Summary
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Six-month-old infants show sensitivity to second-order relational information in faces, similar to adults. They can detect manipulated facial features upright but not when faces are inverted, demonstrating early face processing abilities.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Adults experience the Thatcher illusion, where facial feature distortions are noticeable in upright but not inverted faces.
  • This illusion is linked to difficulties in processing second-order relational information, crucial for facial recognition.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether 6-month-old infants are sensitive to second-order relational information in faces.
  • To determine if infants exhibit sensitivity to the Thatcher illusion.

Main Methods:

  • Infants were presented with 'thatcherized' faces (faces with inverted features).
  • Face perception was tested in both upright and inverted orientations.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Six-month-olds could discriminate Thatcherized faces when presented upright.
  • Infants did not discriminate Thatcherized faces when they were inverted.

Conclusions:

  • The findings suggest that 6-month-olds are sensitive to second-order relational information during face processing.
  • Infant face perception mechanisms share similarities with adult processing, including sensitivity to relational features.