Development of neural basis of face and body processing

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H07424
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: Institute for Developmental Research, Aichi Human Service Center (2017); National Institute for Physiological Sciences (2016)
• Principal Investigator: Kobayashi Megumi 愛知県心身障害者コロニー発達障害研究所, 機能発達学部, 研究員 (70781227)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-08-26 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 人物認知 / 顔 / 身体 / 脳活動 / 発達

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In natural-viewing environments, we sometimes have to recognize people at a distance; for example, when someone approaches. Human adults achieve successful person recognition by an ability to generalize recognition memory of face and body of a person across the different natural-viewing environments. However, no study have investigated this ability and neural basis of body and face processing in early infancy. The current study examined 1) infants' recognition of a person approaching from a distance, and 2) brain activity while infants observe faces and bodies.
The results of a series of experiments suggest that 1) generalization ability of face recognition across different natural-viewing environments develops at around 7 months of age, 2) sensitivity to face and body in infants' bilateral temporal areas changes across development.

Free Research Field

実験心理学、発達心理学