Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA.
Child Dev. 2012 Nov;83(6):1996-2006. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01814.x. Epub 2012 Jul 16.
Six-month-olds reliably discriminate different monkey and human faces whereas 9-month-olds only discriminate different human faces. It is often falsely assumed that perceptual narrowing reflects a permanent change in perceptual abilities. In 3 experiments, ninety-six 12-month-olds' discrimination of unfamiliar monkey faces was examined. Following 20 s of familiarization, and two 5-s visual-paired comparison test trials, 12-month-olds failed to show discrimination. However, following 40 s of familiarization and two 10-s test trials, 12-month-olds showed reliable discrimination of novel monkey faces. A final experiment was performed demonstrating 12-month-olds' discrimination of the monkey face was due to the increased familiarization rather than increased time of visual comparison. Results are discussed in the context of perceptual narrowing, in particular the flexible nature of perceptual narrowing.
6 个月大的婴儿能够可靠地区分不同的猴子和人类面孔，而 9 个月大的婴儿只能区分不同的人类面孔。人们常常错误地认为感知范围的缩小反映了感知能力的永久性变化。在 3 项实验中，研究了 96 名 12 个月大婴儿对不熟悉的猴子面孔的辨别能力。在 20 秒的熟悉阶段和两个 5 秒的视觉配对比较测试阶段后，12 个月大的婴儿未能表现出辨别能力。然而，在 40 秒的熟悉阶段和两个 10 秒的测试阶段后，12 个月大的婴儿能够可靠地区分新的猴子面孔。最后一项实验表明，12 个月大的婴儿对猴子面孔的辨别能力是由于熟悉程度的增加而不是视觉比较时间的增加。研究结果在感知范围缩小的背景下进行了讨论，特别是感知范围缩小的灵活性。
