Abstract
The present studies demonstrate that the right hemisphere plays an important role in the processing of individual faces early in life. Face processing between the age of 4 and 9 months seems to be linked to configural processing. The right hemisphere processes the configurai aspects of patterns and faces, while the left hemisphere processes local aspects. The developmental story of face processing cannot however be simply a part of the developmental story of configurai processing, since a difference in lateralization has been observed between female and male populations in the configurai processing of faces but not geometrical patterns. This difference between the ways in which the two hemispheres represent the visual world is present at an age when no transfer of this information once acquired is possible from one hemisphere to the other. The conjecture is examined that a difference between the maturation rates of some portions of the right and left hemispheres may be one possible factor contributing to the functional differences observed. The preliminary results of a PET scan study performed on 2-month old infants are not incompatible with this conjecture.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Atkinson, J., and Braddick, O. (1989). Development of basic visual functions. In A. Slater and G. Bremner (Eds.), Infant Development. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Banks, M.S., Stephens, B.R., and Hartmann, E.E. (1985). The development of basic mechanisms of pattern vision. Spatial frequency channels. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 40, 501–527.
Banks, M.S., and Dannemiller, J.L. (1987). Infant visual psychophysics. In P. Salapatek and L. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of infant perception (Vol. 1, pp. 115–184). Orlando: Academic Press.
Benton, A.L. (1980). The neuropsychology of facial recognition. American Psychologist, 35, 176–186.
Best, CT., Hoffman, H., and Glanville, B.B. (1982). Development of infant ear asymmetries for speech and music. Perception and Psychophysics, 31, 75–85.
Bresson, F. (1976). Inferences from animal to man: Identifying behavior and identifying functions. In M. Von Cranach (Ed.), Methodological problems in ethology (pp. 319–342). La Haye: Mouton.
Bresson, F., and de Schonen, S. (1979). Le développement cognitif. Les problèmes que pose aujourd’hui son étude. Revue de Psychologie Appliquée, 29, 2, 119–127.
Buisseret, P., Gary-Bobo, E. and Imbert, M. (1978). Ocular motility and recovery of orientational properties of visual cortical neurons in dark-reared kittens, Nature, 272, 816–817.
Chugani, H.T. and Phelps, M.E. (1986). Maturational changes in cerebral function in infants determined by FDG Positron Emission Tomography. Science, 231, 840–842.
Christman, S. (1990). Effects of luminance and blur on hemispheric asymmetries in temporal integration, Neuropsychologia, 28, 361–374.
Crowell, D.H., Jones, R.H., Kapunai, L.E., and Nakagawa, J.K. (1973). Unilateral cortical activity in newborn humans: An early index of cerebral dominance? Science, 180, 205–208.
Davidson, R. J., and Fox, N. A. (1982). Asymmetrical brain activity discriminates between positive and negative affective stimuli in human infants, Science, 218, 1235–1237.
Deruelle, C. (1992). Percpetion des patterns visuels: Développement des asymétries fonctionnelles hémisphériques chez le nourrisson. Thèse, Spécialité Neurosciences, Université d’Aix-Marseille II. Mars 1992.
Deruelle, C. and de Schonen, S. (1991). Hemipsheric Asymmetries in Visual Pattern Processing in Infancy, Brain and Cognition, 16, 151–179.
Deruelle, C. and de Schonen, S. (submitted). Configurai and Componential pattern processing by infants: hemispheric differences.
de Schonen, S. (1989). Some reflections on brain specialisation in faceness and physiognomy processing. In A. Young and H.D. Ellis (Eds.), Handbook of research on face processing (pp. 379–389). Amsterdam: North Holland.
de Schonen, S., and Bresson, F. (1983). Données et perspectives nouvelles sur les débuts du développement. In de Schonen, S. (Ed.), Le développement dans la première année (pp. 13–26). Paris: PUF.
de Schonen, S., and Bry, I. (1987). Interhemispheric communication of visual learning: A developmental study in 3–6- month- old infants. Neuropsychologia, 25, 601–612.
de Schonen, S., and Deruelle, C. (1991a). Configurational and componential visual pattern processing in infancy. Poster presented at the 14th European Conference on Visual Perception, Vilnius, 26–30 August 1991. Perception, 20, 1, 123 (Abstract).
de Schonen, S., and Deruelle, C. (1991b). Spécialisation hémisphérique et reconnaissance des formes et des visages chez le nourrisson. L’Année Psychologique, 91, 15–46.
de Schonen, S., Gil de Diaz, M., and Mathivet, E. (1986). Hemispheric asymmetry in face processing in infancy. In H.D. Ellis, M.A. Jeeves, F. Newcombe and A. Young (Eds.), Aspects of face processing (pp. 199–208). Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
de Schonen, S., MacKenzie, B., Maury, L. and Bresson, F. (1978). Central and peripheral objects distances as determinants of the effective visual field in early infancy. Perception, 7, 499–506.
de Schonen, S., and Mathivet, E. (1989). First come first served, a scenario about development of hemispheric specialization in face recognition during infancy. European Bulletin of Cognitive Psychology (CPC), 9, 3–44.
de Schonen, S., and Mathivet, E. (1990). Hemispheric asymmetry in a face discrimination task in infants. Child Development, 61, 1192–1205.
Dodwell, P.C., Humphrey, G.K., and Muir, D.W. (1987). Shape and pattern perception. In P. Salapatek and L. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of infant perception (Vol. 2, pp. 1–79). Orlando: Academic Press.
Ellis, H.D., and Young, A.W. (1989). Are faces special ? In A.W. Young and H.D. Ellis (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Face Processing (pp. 1–26). Oxford: North-Holland.
Fifkova, E. (1985). A possible mechanism of morphometric changes in dendritic spines induced by stimulation. Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, 5, 47–63.
Fifkova, E., and Van Harreveld, A. (1977). Long lasting morphological changes in dendritic spines of granular cells following stimulation or the enthorinal area. Journal of Neurocytology, 6, 211–230.
Fiorentini, A., and Berardi, N. (1984). Right-hemisphere superiority in the discrimination of spatial phase. Perception, 13, 695–708.
Fox, N.A., and Davidson, RJ. (1987). EEG asymmetry in response to approach of a stranger and maternal separation in 10-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology, 23, 223–240.
Fox, N.A., and Davidson, RJ. (1988). Patterns of brain electrical activity during facial signs of emotions in 10-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology, 24, 230–236.
Geschwind, N., and Galaburda, A.M. (1985). Cerebral lateralization. Biological mechanisms, associations, and pathology. I. A hypothesis and a program for research. Archives of Neurology, 42, 428–459.
Ghim, H.D., and Eimas P.D. (1988). Global and local processing by 3- and 4-month-old infants. Perception and Psychophysics, 43, 165–171.
Greenough, W.T., Black, J.E., and Wallace, C.S. (1987). Experience and brain development. Child Development, 58, 539–559.
Gwiazda, J., Bauer, J., and Held, R. (1989). From visual acuity to hyperacuity: A 10-year update. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 43, 109–120.
Hecaen, H., and Albert M. (1978). Human Neuropsychology. New York: Wiley.
Held, R. (1989). Development of cortically mediated visual processes in human infants. In C. Von Euler, H. Forssberg and H. Lagerctantz (Eds.), Neurobiology of Early Infant Behaviour (155–172). International Wallenberg Symposium. London: The MacMillan Press.
Hughes, H.C., Fendrich, R. and Reuter-Lorenz, P.A. (1990). Global versus local processing in the absence of low spatial frequencies. Journal of Cognitive Neurscience, 2, 272–282.
Johnson, M.H., (1990). Cortical maturation and the development of visual attention in early infancy, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, 81–95.
Johnson, M., and Morton, J. (1991). Biology and Cognitive Development: The Case of Face Recognition. Oxford: Blackwells.
Kitterle, F.L., Christman, S., and Hellige, J.B. (1990). Hemispheric differences are found in the identification, but not the detection, of low versus high spatial frequencies. Perception and Psychophysic, 48, 297–306.
van Kleeck, M.H., and Kosslyn, S.M. (1989). Gestalt laws of perceptual organization in an embedded figures task: Evidence for hemispheric specialization. Neuropsychologia, 27, 1179–1186.
Kuks, J. and Vos, J. (1992). Infant sleep EEG patterns in absence of the corpus callosum. Paper presented at the Workshop on the Corpus Callosum and Interhemispheric Transfer, Belgium, June 16–19 1992. to appear in Behavioural Brain Research, 1993.
Lewis T.L., Maurer, D., and Kay, D. (1978). Newborn’s central vision: whole or hole ? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 26, 193–203.
Michimata, C., and Hellige, J.B. (1987). Effects of blurring and stimulus size on the lateralized processing of nonverbal stimuli. Neuropsychologia, 25, 397–407.
Morton, J., and Johnson, M.H. (1991). Conspec and conlern: A two-process theory of infant face recognition. Psychological Review, 98, 164–181.
Moscovitch M. (1979). Information processing and the cerebral hemispheres. In M.S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), Hanbook of Neurobiology: Neuropsychology (pp. 379–446). New York: Plenum Press.
Posner, M.I., and Petersen, S.E. (1990). The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25–42.
Rosen, G.D., Galaburda, A.M., and Sherman, G.F. (1987). Mechanisms of brain asymmetry: new evidence and hypothesis. In D. Ottoson (Ed.) Duality and unity of the brain (pp. 29–36). New York: Plenum Press.
Rothbart, M.K., Posner, M.L, and Boylan, A. (1990). Regulatory mechanisms in infant development. In J.T. Enns (Ed.), The Development of Attention. Research and Theory (pp. 47–66). Oxford: North-Holland.
Schechter, P.B., and Murphy, E.H. (1976). Brief monocular visual experience and kitten cortical binocularity. Brain Research, 109, 165–168.
Segalowitz, S.J., and Chapman, J.S. (1980). Cerebral asymmetry for speech in neonates: A behavioral measure. Brain and Language, 9, 281–288.
Sergent, J. (1983). The role of the input in visual hemispheric processing, Psychological Bulletin, 93, 481–512.
Sergent, J. (1985). Influence of task and input factors on hemispheric involvement in face processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 11, 846–861.
Sergent, J. (1987). Failures to confirm the spatial-frequency hypothesis: Fatal blow or helathy complication ? Canadian Journal of Psychology, 41, 412–428.
Sergent, J., (1989). Structural processing of faces. In A.W. Young and H.D. Ellis (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Face Processing (pp. 57–91). Oxford: North-Holland.
Sergent J. (1992). Functional neuroanatomy of face and object processing. A positon emission tomography study. Brain, 115, 15–36.
Simonds, R.J., and Scheibel, A.B. (1989). The postnatal Development of the motor speech area: a preliminary study, Brain and Language, 37, 42–58.
Singer, W. (1987). Activity dependent self-organizatiion of synaptic connections as a substrate of learning. In J. Changeux and M. Konishi (Eds.), The neural and molecular bases of learning (pp. 301–336). New York: Wiley.
Szelag, W., Budohoska, W., and Koltuska, B. (1987). Hemispheric differences in the perception of gratings. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 25, 95–98.
Turkewitz, G. (1989a). Face processing as a fundamental feature of development. In A. Young and H.D. Ellis (Eds.), Handbook of research on face processing (pp. 401–404). Amsterdam: North Holland.
Turkewitz, G. (1989b). A prologue to the scenario of the development of hemispheric specialization: prenatal influences. European Bulletin of Cognitive Psychology (CPC), 9, 135–140.
Tzourio, N., de Schonen, S., Mazoyer, B., Boré, A., Pietrzyk, U., Bruck, B., Aujard, Y. and Deruelle, C. (1992). Regional cerebral blood flow in two-month-old alert infants. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 18, 2, 1121.
Young, A.W. (1983). Functions of the right cerebral hemisphere. New York: Academic Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
de Schonen, S., Deruelle, C., Mancini, J., Pascalis, O. (1993). Hemispheric Differences in Face Processing and Brain Maturation. In: de Boysson-Bardies, B., de Schonen, S., Jusczyk, P., McNeilage, P., Morton, J. (eds) Developmental Neurocognition: Speech and Face Processing in the First Year of Life. NATO ASI Series, vol 69. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8234-6_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8234-6_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4251-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-8234-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive