Kuwahata H, Adachi I, Fujita K, Tomonaga M, Matsuzawa T
Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.
Behav Processes. 2004 Apr 30;66(1):17-21. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2003.11.002.
This study investigated schematic face preferences in infant macaque monkeys. We also examined the roles of whole and partial features in facial recognition and related developmental change. Sixteen infant monkeys, all less than two months old, were presented with two stimulus pairs. Pair A consisted of "face" and "parts," with the components representing facial parts (i.e. eyes, mouth, and nose). Pair B consisted of "configuration" and "linear," each including three black squares. In each pair, one of two stimuli represented a facial configuration, namely "face" and "configuration." Visual following responses toward each stimulus were analyzed. The results revealed an early preference for schematic faces in these nonhuman primates. Infants less than one month of age showed a preference only for a stimulus that contained only whole facial configuration (i.e. "configuration" in Pair B). One-month-old macaque infants showed a preference only for "face" but not for "configuration." This result means that their preference at that age was affected by both the shape of the components and the overall configuration. As the developmental change and the contribution of both facial features are similar to those in human infants, it may suggest that primates share common cognitive processes in early schematic face recognition.
本研究调查了幼年猕猴对示意性面孔的偏好。我们还研究了整体和局部特征在面部识别中的作用以及相关的发育变化。16只均小于两个月大的幼年猕猴被呈现了两对刺激物。A组由“面孔”和“部分”组成，其组成部分代表面部特征（即眼睛、嘴巴和鼻子）。B组由“构型”和“线性”组成，每组包含三个黑色正方形。在每一组中，两种刺激物中的一种代表面部构型，即“面孔”和“构型”。分析了对每种刺激物的视觉追踪反应。结果显示这些非人类灵长类动物早期对示意性面孔有偏好。小于一个月大的婴儿仅对包含完整面部构型的刺激物（即B组中的“构型”）表现出偏好。一个月大的猕猴婴儿仅对“面孔”表现出偏好，而对“构型”没有偏好。这一结果意味着他们在那个年龄的偏好受到组成部分的形状和整体构型的影响。由于发育变化以及两种面部特征的作用与人类婴儿相似，这可能表明灵长类动物在早期示意性面孔识别中具有共同的认知过程。
