PSYC1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Facial Recognition System, John Bowlby, Homeostasis
19 May 2018
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Emotion in infancy - background (cognitive and
emotional capabilities of infants and toddlers) and
social referencing
What can babies do?
• Signalling (attachment behaviour)
• Person perception (face and voice recognition)
• Imitation
• Turn-taking and reciprocity (eagerness to engage)
• Joint-attention (e.g. toy showing)
• Emotion understanding and regulation (empathy, social referencing and attachment)
Face recognition and processing
• Fantz - Early investigations concerned with perception of schematic faces
• Hard to know whether infants are attending to complexity, symmetry or external contour
• When factors controlled carefully, infant preference for faces does not emerge until four or
five months (e.g. Wilcox 1969)
o Wilcox 1969
o Maurer and Barrera 1984
• 2 month olds discriminate amongst all 3 configurations and have a preference for
A
o Morton and Johnson 1991
• 10 week olds discriminate between facial and non-facial configurations (CONSPEC)
and there is little evidence of recognition via learning processes at 5 weeks
(CONLERN)
• Up-down symmetry
o Presence of patterning in the upper than in the lower part of the configuration
o Insert pic
• Congruency
o Existence of a congruent spatial relation between the spatial disposition of the inner
features and the shape of the outer contour (Macchi Cassia et al. 2002)
o Non-nativist hypothesis - specific preference for faces might be explained as a result of
cumulative effect of non-specific perceptual biases present shortly after birth.
Preferences for at least 2 general structural properties contained in typical facelike
patterns, even when configuration does not look like face
• Real faces
o Infants can discriminate schematic faces, which symbolise real faces
o Properties of real faces hard to control
o Field et al. 1982 - neonates with mean age of 45 hrs showed reliable preference for
mother's face as opposed to a stranger
Imitation
• Within Piagetian framework, true imitation only emerges at end fo 2nd year
• Considered to be constrained by self-differentiation and behavioural mastery
• Piaget - infant must achieve muscular control, then see herself in act of imitation, before
imitating novel behaviours or engage in deferred imitation
o Nothing is innate in imitation. Something that the child learns
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Ferrari et al. 2006
o At 3 days of age infant macaques systematically imitated lip smacking and tongue
protrusion
Turn-taking and reciprocity (eagerness to engage)
• Schaffer et al 1977
o In conversations between 1-2 yo and mothers, vocal exchanges very smooth and have
appearance of discourse
• Others have shown smooth TEMPORALLY sensitive turn taking in vocal and physical interaction
between very young infants and caregivers
• Motivational structure of infant and caregiver interactions turns on sharing emotional
exchanges, and genuine (infant) pleasure in the company of the other
• Depends on extent to which other person (e.g. mother) is responsive and interested in the
infant
Emotion understanding and regulation (empathy, social referencing and attachment)
• Research since 1970s shows infants emotionally prepared and even have emotional sensitivity
in social contexts
• Bremner 1988 - perception of emotion appears to be unique in giving direct access to the
states of mind of others
• Emotions apparently motivate social and cognitive transformation
• COMMON MISCONCEPTION - infants do not have structured emotional repertoire
o Hiatt, Campos & Emde 1979 - Put infants in situations that should elicit joy, fear and
surprise. Found infants responded with appropriate emotions
o Campos & Emde 1983 - biscuit removal at 7mo ( produced anger)
o Stenberg 1982 - infant arm restraint at 1mo (anger)
• Caron, Caron & Myers 1982
o Used preferential looking paradigm
o First habituated infants to one emotion expression e.g. happiness
o Found infants sensitive to a new emotional expression e.g. surprise
o Concluded…
• Infants have structured emotional responses
• Infants seem to be emotionally sensitive
• Although uncertain, responses and sensitivities make sense within our adult
framework for understanding people as emotional beings
• Empathetic arousal
o Infants cry in response to cries of other infants
o Suggests basic form of emotional contagion
o Haviland & Lelwica 1987
• 10 week old infants and mother
• Face to face paradigm
• Mother emotions: happy, sad angry
• Infants responded appropriately to each display (not identically)
• Findings suggest infants are socially aware emotional agents, not only affective
mirrors
• Main & George 1985
o Hurting and comforting in 1-3yo maltreated children
o Naturalistic observations of 10 abused and 10 non-abused control children in day care
setting
o Control children showed emotionally appropriate responses to distressed play mates
(comforting, concern, sadness) or interest
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Emotion in infancy - background (cognitive and emotional capabilities of infants and toddlers) and social referencing. Signalling (attachment behaviour: person perception (face and voice recognition, turn-taking and reciprocity (eagerness to engage, emotion understanding and regulation (empathy, social referencing and attachment) Insert pic: congruency, existence of a congruent spatial relation between the spatial disposition of the inner features and the shape of the outer contour (macchi cassia et al. 2002: non-nativist hypothesis - specific preference for faces might be explained as a result of cumulative effect of non-specific perceptual biases present shortly after birth. Preferences for at least 2 general structural properties contained in typical facelike patterns, even when configuration does not look like face: real faces. Infants can discriminate schematic faces, which symbolise real faces: properties of real faces hard to control, field et al. 1982 - neonates with mean age of 45 hrs showed reliable preference for mother"s face as opposed to a stranger.
