Do low birth weight infants not see eyes? Face recognition in infancy

Progress in neonatal medicine has dramatically improved the survival rate of preterm births, but the evidence suggests that these low-birth weight infants (LBWIs) go on to develop pervasive development disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at greater rates than the general population. Children with neurodevelopmental disorders are known to suffer from deficits in visual cognition, such as in face perception and attentional functions, the characteristics of which already manifest in early infancy.

This study aimed to investigate visual cognition in LBWIs during infancy.

20 LBWIs and 20 normal-birth-weight infants (NBWIs: control) of age 9-10 months (corrected age was used for LBWIs).

Children were held seated in front of an eye tracking system by a parent, and presented with facial photos as visual stimuli. During the familiarization phase, the child was presented with two images of the same human face (familiarization stimulus) on the left and right side of a display screen (5 × 10 s trials). Next, during the test phase, the child was presented with the same image on one side of the screen, and a photo of a different person's face (novel stimulus) on the other (2 × 5 s trials). Gaze behavior was assessed in terms of the total time spent looking at either facial stimulus, and specifically at the eyes of the stimuli, as well as the number of attentional shifts between stimuli, and novelty preference.

LBWIs spent significant less time looking at facial stimuli overall, and less time at the eye region, than NBWIs. These findings seem to evidence developmental differences in functions related to visual cognition.