Learning new faces in typical and atypical populations of children

Recognizing an individual as familiar is an important aspect of our social cognition, which requires both learning a face and recalling it. It has been suggested that children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) have deficits and abnormalities in face processing. We investigated whether the process by which unfamiliar faces become familiar differs in typically developing (TD) children, children with ASD, and children with developmental delay. Children were familiarized with a set of moving novel faces presented over a three-day period. Recognition of the learned faces was assessed at five time points during the three-day period. Both immediate and delayed recall of faces was tested. All groups showed improvements in face recognition at immediate recall, which indicated that learning had occurred. The TD population showed slightly better performance than the two other groups, however no difference was specific to the ASD group. All groups showed similar levels of improvements with time. Our results are discussed in terms of learning in ASD.