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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 16, 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

Piecing it together: infants' neural responses to face and object structure.

Faraz Farzin¹, Chuan Hou, Anthony M Norcia

¹Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. ffarzin@stanford.edu

Journal of Vision

|December 11, 2012

Summary

This study reveals how infants and adults process visual information. Infants aged 4-6 months show distinct neural responses for faces versus objects, indicating early visual processing development.

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Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Developmental Psychology
Visual Perception

Background:

Object recognition relies on integrating local features into global forms.
The developmental trajectory of hierarchical visual analysis for object representation in infants is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the structural encoding of natural images in 4- to 6-month-old infants and adults.
To determine if neural responses differ for object and face image categories in infants and adults.

Main Methods:

Utilized steady-state visual evoked potential (ssVEP) technique to measure cortical responses.
Applied ssVEP to high-level vision in infants for the first time.
Assessed differential neural responses to global structure in object and face images.

Main Results:

Both infants and adults responded to structural relations in both object and face images.
Neural response topographies differed based on image category in both age groups.
Infant face responses were localized to temporal regions, unlike adult responses (occipitotemporal), suggesting higher-level processing for faces.

Conclusions:

Infants and adults exhibit object category specificity in neural responses.
Structural encoding of faces in 4- to 6-month-old infants occurs at a higher processing level than that of objects.
This study provides novel insights into the early development of visual object recognition pathways.