Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

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
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

The effect of ostensive communication on immediate and delayed memory of novel and familiar action patterns.

Memory & cognition·2025
Same author

Natural logic and baby LoTH.

The Behavioral and brain sciences·2023
Same author

Seeing inferences: brain dynamics and oculomotor signatures of non-verbal deduction.

Scientific reports·2023
Same author

Erratum: Disjunctive inference in preverbal infants.

iScience·2022
Same author

Disjunctive inference in preverbal infants.

iScience·2021
Same author

Perception of Prosodic Boundary Correlates by Newborn Infants.

Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies·2021
Same journal

How Does the Mind Grow? Cross-Cultural Intuitive Theories of Mental Development.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Not All Practice Is Created Equal: Longitudinal Evidence From Over 40,000 Chess Players.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Eye Glint as a Novel Perceptual Cue in Human Vision.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Multitarget Visual Search Flexibly Switches Between Concurrent and Sequential Search Modes.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Motive Alignment Promotes Adolescents' Proenvironmental Behavior: A Field Experiment in Two Cultures.

Psychological science·2026
Same journal

Retributive Sentiments Track Both Deterrent and Compensatory Concerns in a Small-Scale Society and a WEIRD Sample.

Psychological science·2026
See all related articles

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.

Related Experiment Videos

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.