Infant Face Preferences after Binocular Visual Deprivation

Early visual deprivation impairs some, but not all, aspects of face perception. We investigated the possible developmental roots of later abnormalities by using a face detection task to test infants treated for bilateral congenital cataract within 1 hour of their first focused visual input. The seven patients were between 5 and 12 weeks old ("n" = 3) or older than 12 weeks ("n" = 4). Like newborns, but unlike visually normal age-matched controls, the patients looked preferentially toward "config" (three squares arranged as facial features) over its inverted version and none of the older patients preferred a positive-contrast face over the negative-contrast version. We conclude that postnatal changes in face perception are experience-dependent, and that interference with their typical development may contribute to later deficits in face processing. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure and 1 note.)