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What face inversion does to infants' counting abilities

Luca L Bonatti1, Emmanuel Frot, Jacques Mehler

  • 1International School for Advanced Studies, 2/4 via Beirut, Trieste, Italy. lucabonatti@mac.com

Psychological Science
|July 13, 2005
PubMed

Insights

Infants can count objects if they differ in category, like human vs. animal. Face orientation is a key factor influencing infant counting abilities, impacting their success or failure in object numerosity tasks.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Infant Perception

Background:

  • Infants' ability to discern object numerosity is limited, typically requiring broad category differences (e.g., human, animal, artifact).
  • Previous research suggests infants struggle with counting based on subtle property differences alone.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether face orientation influences 10- and 12-month-old infants' ability to count objects.
  • To explore the role of property contrasts in infant numerosity perception.

Main Methods:

  • Infants observed two puppets appearing and disappearing behind an occluder.
  • Object numerosity was assessed based on property differences, specifically face orientation (upright vs. upside-down).
  • Behavioral responses were recorded to determine correct or incorrect counting.

Main Results:

  • Infants correctly counted two puppets when one had an upright face and the other an upside-down face.
  • Infants failed to correctly count when both puppets had upright faces.
  • This pattern mirrors brain activation patterns observed in adults and infants viewing objects with similar property contrasts.

Conclusions:

  • Face orientation serves as a critical cue for object counting in young infants.
  • Infants' ability to differentiate and count objects is modulated by salient perceptual features like face orientation.
  • Findings suggest a link between perceptual processing of object properties and the development of numerical cognition in infants.

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