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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 9, 2026

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

Distinct processing of objects and faces in the infant brain.

Victoria Southgate¹, Gergely Csibra, Jordy Kaufman

¹Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK. v.southgate@bbk.ac.uk

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

|December 7, 2007

Summary

Infant brains process faces and objects differently. Gamma-band oscillations in infants show spatiotemporal information is maintained for objects, but not faces, during occlusion.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Developmental Psychology
Cognitive Science

Background:

Gamma-band electroencephalogram (EEG) oscillations over the posterior cortex in infants are linked to maintaining object representations during occlusion.
Behavioral studies suggest infants retain spatiotemporal but not featural information for occluded graspable objects, and surface feature but not spatiotemporal information for occluded faces.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the nature of representations maintained during occlusion in infants.
To differentiate the processing of objects versus faces in the infant brain using EEG.
To determine if posterior gamma-band activity reflects spatiotemporal or featural information.

Main Methods:

An occlusion paradigm was employed with infants.
Infants were presented with either objects or faces during occlusion.
Surface feature violations were introduced on half of the trials for both objects and faces.
Gamma-band EEG oscillations were recorded over the posterior cortex.

Main Results:

Infants showed higher gamma-band activation when presented with a surface feature violation of a face, confirming predictions.
A significant increase in gamma-band activity was observed during object occlusion, consistent with prior research.
No comparable increase in gamma-band activity was found during face occlusion.

Conclusions:

Infant brains exhibit distinct processing mechanisms for objects and faces.
The posterior gamma-band increase during occlusion appears to primarily reflect the maintenance of spatiotemporal information.
These findings suggest that featural information for faces is processed differently than spatiotemporal information for objects during early development.