Recognition of faces and Greebles in 3-month-old infants: Influence of temperament and cognitive abilities

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether temperament and cognitive abilities are related to recognition performance of Caucasian and African faces and of a nonfacial stimulus class, Greebles. Seventy Caucasian infants were tested at 3 months with a habituation/dishabituation paradigm...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of behavioral development 2011-09, Vol.35 (5), p.432-440
Main Authors: Spangler, Sibylle M., Freitag, Claudia, Schwarzer, Gudrun, Vierhaus, Marc, Teubert, Manuel, Lamm, Bettina, Kolling, Thorsten, Graf, Frauke, Goertz, Claudia, Fassbender, Ina, Lohaus, Arnold, Knopf, Monika, Keller, Heidi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acknowledgment
African Studies
Age
Cognitive abilities
Cognitive Ability
Data Analysis
Faces
Habituation
Infant Behavior
Infants
Intelligence
Investigations
Personality
Recognition (Psychology)
Stimulus
Temperament
Whites
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Summary:The aim of the present study was to investigate whether temperament and cognitive abilities are related to recognition performance of Caucasian and African faces and of a nonfacial stimulus class, Greebles. Seventy Caucasian infants were tested at 3 months with a habituation/dishabituation paradigm and their temperament and cognitive abilities were measured. Analyses revealed that only infants with easy temperament recognized familiar Greebles from the habituation phase. A similar pattern was found for cognitive abilities showing that only infants with higher cognitive abilities recognized Greebles. Irrespectively of temperament and cognitive abilities, all infants recognized the faces. Thus, the data suggest that recognition of unfamiliar Greebles, but not of faces, is demanding for 3-month-old infants with difficult temperament or lower cognitive abilities.
ISSN:0165-0254
1464-0651
DOI:10.1177/0165025411406565