Face is Not Visually but Auditorily and Visually Represented

We can discriminate face from non-face even in infancy, but it is not clear based on what kind of features we discriminate them. One hypothesis, termed CONSPEC, posits that infants possess innate information concerning the structure of faces, specifically, three blobs constituting the corners of an inverted triangle (Morton & Johnson, 1991). However, an alternative view, top-heavy bias, posits that the preference for faces can be explained by a general visual preference of more features on the upper part of an object (Simion et al, 2001). In this experiment, four blobs constituting a virtual diamond were presented with and without a beep, and the looking time to each blob was measured. The ratio of looking time to blobs were not significantly different between beep-present/-absent conditions, except for the blob at the lowest position, where the ratio of looking time increased with a beep. This result suggests that the lowest blob is regarded as the mouth, favoring CONSPEC and against top-heavy bias hypothesis. Our result also indicates the importance of auditory information for the representation of face, although facial representation is usually discussed in terms of visual perception