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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
Published on: May 15, 2019
18-Month-olds can perceive Mooney faces
Hirokazu Doi1, Tadashi Koga, Kazuyuki Shinohara
1Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.
Abstract:
The ability to detect facial information despite poor visual conditions is important for young infants. The present study investigated the developmental course of facial information detection by examining whether infants perceive Mooney faces, a well-studied type of impoverished face image. The 18-month-olds preferred upright Mooney faces to inverted ones, but 12- and 6-month-olds did not show any signs of discriminating the upright Mooney faces from inverted ones. These results indicate that 18-month-olds possess the ability to perceive Mooney faces, but definitive conclusions cannot be drawn regarding the ability to perceive Mooney faces in younger infants.
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