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Published on: April 28, 2016
A Smile Enhances 3-Month-Olds' Recognition of an Individual Face
Chiara Turati1, Rosario Montirosso2, Viola Brenna2
1Dipartimento di Psicologia Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca.
Abstract:
Recent studies demonstrated that in adults and children recognition of face identity and facial expression mutually interact (Bate, Haslam, & Hodgson, 2009; Spangler, Schwarzer, Korell, & Maier-Karius, 2010). Here, using a familiarization paradigm, we explored the relation between these processes in early infancy, investigating whether 3-month-old infants' ability to recognize an individual face is affected by the positive (happiness) or neutral emotional expression displayed. Results indicated that infants' face recognition appears enhanced when faces display a happy emotional expression, suggesting the presence of a mutual interaction between face identity and emotion recognition as early as 3 months of age.
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