Capparini Chiara, To Michelle P S, Reid Vincent M
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK.
School of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand.
Brain Sci. 2022 Apr 13;12(4):493. doi: 10.3390/brainsci12040493.
Human infants are highly sensitive to social information in their visual world. In laboratory settings, researchers have mainly studied the development of social information processing using faces presented on standard computer displays, in paradigms exploring face-to-face, direct eye contact social interactions. This is a simplification of a richer visual environment in which social information derives from the wider visual field and detection involves navigating the world with eyes, head and body movements. The present study measured 9-month-old infants' sensitivities to face-like configurations across mid-peripheral visual areas using a detection task. Upright and inverted face-like stimuli appeared at one of three eccentricities (50°, 55° or 60°) in the left and right hemifields. Detection rates at different eccentricities were measured from video recordings. Results indicated that infant performance was heterogeneous and dropped beyond 55°, with a marginal advantage for targets appearing in the left hemifield. Infants' orienting behaviour was not influenced by the orientation of the target stimulus. These findings are key to understanding how face stimuli are perceived outside foveal regions and are informative for the design of infant paradigms involving stimulus presentation across a wider field of view, in more naturalistic visual environments.
人类婴儿对其视觉世界中的社会信息高度敏感。在实验室环境中，研究人员主要使用标准电脑显示器上呈现的面孔，在探索面对面、直接眼神接触的社会互动范式中，研究社会信息处理的发展。这是对更丰富视觉环境的简化，在该环境中，社会信息来自更广阔的视野，检测涉及通过眼睛、头部和身体运动在世界中导航。本研究使用检测任务测量了9个月大婴儿对中周视觉区域中类似面孔配置的敏感度。直立和倒置的类似面孔刺激出现在左右半视野的三个偏心率（50°、55°或60°）之一处。通过视频记录测量不同偏心率下的检测率。结果表明，婴儿的表现存在异质性，超过55°后表现下降，左半视野出现的目标有微弱优势。婴儿的定向行为不受目标刺激方向的影响。这些发现对于理解中央凹区域以外如何感知面孔刺激至关重要，并且对于设计在更自然主义视觉环境中涉及跨更广阔视野呈现刺激的婴儿范式具有参考价值。
