Event-related brain potentials to human faces in infants.

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in response to tachistoscopically presented photographs of 2 human faces were recorded for 4--7-month-old infants. For each infant 1 face was chosen to be presented frequently (p = .88, a low-information event) and the other infrequently (p = .12, a high-information event). Both types of events elicited in our infants a long-latency negative ERP wave (ca. 700 msec), termed Nc, and a long-latency positive wave (ca. 1,360 msec), termed Pc. We found that the discrepant, infrequently presented face elicited Nc waves which were higher in amplitude and longer in latency than those elicited by the frequent face. These differences suggest that our infants were able to remember the frequently presented face from trial to trial and to discriminate it from the discrepant face. The discrepant event elicited Pc waves which were insignificantly higher in amplitude than those elicited by frequent events. In adults and children, discrepant events have been found by numerous researchers to elicit positive P3 waves (latency ca. 300--800 msec). In our study, however, such waves could not be discerned. So, of all of the ERP waves which have been related to cognitive processes, the wave which is maturationally the earliest to appear is the Nc wave, which has been related to the perception of attention-getting events or events of interest to the subject. Our findings suggest that ERP responses could provide a sensitive means for investigating infant cognitive development since they do not depend upon an integrated motor-response system.