Premium
Congruency as a Nonspecific Perceptual Property Contributing to Newborns’ Face Preference
Author(s) -
Macchi Cassia Viola,
Valenza Eloisa,
Simion Francesca,
Leo Irene
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01160.x
Subject(s) - psychology , preference , property (philosophy) , perception , cognitive psychology , face (sociological concept) , face perception , visual perception , social psychology , neuroscience , mathematics , statistics , social science , philosophy , epistemology , sociology
Past research has shown that top‐heaviness is a perceptual property that plays a crucial role in triggering newborns’ preference toward faces. The present study examined the contribution of a second configural property, congruency , to newborns’ face preference. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that when embedded in nonfacelike stimuli, congruency induces a preference of the same strength as that induced by facedness. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that the attentional biases toward facedness and congruency produce a cumulative effect on newborns’ visual preferences according to an additive model. These findings were extended by those of Experiment 5, showing that the additive model holds true when congruency is added to top‐heaviness in nonfacelike stimuli displaying more elements in the upper portion.