Infants' perception of similarity between live people and their photographs.

5-month-old infants who had been habituated to a live face showed no change in fixation time when presented with an immediately following photographic slide of that same face, while they showed an increase in fixation time (dishabituation) to a photographic slide of a novel face of different sex, hair color, and hair style. The similarity in responses to the live person and his photograph indictaes that some identification of people in photographs is possible even in the absence of extended prior developmental experience with pictures. A second experiment found that 5-month-old Ss exhibited the same amount of looking when a live face was followed either by its own photograph or by a photograph of a novel person of like sex, hair color, and hair style. Apparently, these Ss used only rather gross physiognomic features to perceive a similarity between a live person and that person's photograph.