Infants use knowledge of emotions to augment face perception: Evidence of top-down modulation of perception early in life.

ABSTRACT: While top-down modulation is believed to be central to adult perception, the developmental origins of this ability are unclear. Here, we present a direct, behavioral investigation of top-down modulation of perception in infancy using emotional face perception as a test case. We investigated whether 9-month-olds can modulate their face perception based on predictive, auditory emotional cues without any training or familiarization procedure. Infants first heard a 3-second emotional vocal sound (happy/angry) while their gaze was held in the center of the screen. Then, they were presented with a pair of emotional and neutral faces images without any audio sound. The faces were small (4.70° × 5.80°) and presented in randomized locations outside their focus of attention. We measured the initial

SUBMITTER: Xiao NG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7294579 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature