ABSTRACT
Other-species face processing has been examined in populations as young
as newborns (Di Giorgio, Leo, Pascalis & Simion, 2012; Heron-Delaney,
Wirth, & Pascalis, 2011). Investigations of general face-processing abilities
in newborns suggest that they orient preferentially towards faces and face
like-stimuli relative to objects (Fantz, 1961; Goren, Sarty, & Wu, 1975;
Johnson & Morton, 1991; Macchi-Cassia, Turati, & Simion, 2004; Valenza,
Simion, Macchi Cassia, & Umilta, 1996). This early preference for faces has
led some researchers to hypothesize that face-specific perception is, to some
extent, hard-wired (e.g., Farah, Rabinowitz, Quinn, & Liu, 2000; Slater &
Quinn, 2001). However, others have found rapid learning at birth and
suggest that newborns have face preferences because of strong associations
formed between the mother’s face and voice in the first few moments of life
(Sai, 2005). This debate has led to a discussion about whether early face
perception may be explained by a domain-specific evolutionary mechanism
for faces or a domain-general evolutionary mechanism for rapid associative
learning that is driven by pre-and postnatal experience and constrained by
the development of the visual system. Here, we discuss ways in which
experience shapes the development of face processing in infancy and whether
or not the current literature allows us to determine whether own-species face
advantages arise from an innate representation of conspecifics, from the
greater lifetime experience with conspecifics, or from a combination of both.
