Posted on Dec. 23: Training your brain as a baby helps you recognize people as an adult, study shows
When you recognize a new acquaintance across the room at a holiday party this year, know that the reason you can do so is because of work your brain and eyes did when you were a baby.
McMaster University vision scientists have discovered that the ability to recognize someone from different points of view – when they look down at a tray of food or turn their head to the side as a
friend arrives – is dependent upon seeing things during the first few weeks of life. Their study's findings were published in the November issue of the journal Developmental Science.
“The visual experience you have as a baby is training the brain for the future,” said Daphne Maurer, a psychology professor and vision scientist at McMaster, who oversaw the research conducted by graduate student Sybil Geldart. The other researchers involved in the study included McMaster research associate Catherine Mondloch, Scania de Schonen of the Laboratory of Cognition and Development at CNRS-Paris 5 and Dr. Henry Brent of the Hospital for Sick Children.
“We all use visual cues for our social interactions,” added Maurer. “Visual input during the first few months after birth, when babies' vision is quite poor, is nevertheless necessary to set up the
brain so that later in life we can learn to use cues for recognizing people as they move around in the world perhaps introduced to us head on at a party, but then recognized as they stand with their head tilted across the room.”
In the study, the researchers tested the ability of 17 adults with a history of early visual deprivation due to cataracts to perform five real-world face tasks. The participants came from all over Ontario
and had been treated at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
The tasks included recognizing emotional expression such as happy or disgusted, recognizing the direction in which someone is looking, using lip reading to recognize what sound a person is saying, recognizing who someone is even when they change facial expression and finally, recognizing who someone is when they look up or turn their head to the side.
The study participants performed as well as the control group who had normal vision as a baby on all but one task: they were unable to recognize people when seen from a new point of view. Although this ability continues to develop into adolescence, the baby's brain is shaped by early visual input that allows for the later development of this skill.
