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How do 9‐month‐old infants categorize human and ape faces? A rapid repetition ERP study
Author(s) -
Peykarjou Stefanie,
Pauen Sabina,
Hoehl Stefanie
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/psyp.12238
Subject(s) - psychology , categorization , priming (agriculture) , repetition priming , repetition (rhetorical device) , event related potential , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , communication , cognition , neuroscience , linguistics , lexical decision task , biology , philosophy , botany , germination
The current study investigates how infants categorize human compared to ape faces. Nine‐month‐old infants were presented with priming stimuli related to human ( N = 24) or ape ( N = 25) face targets on different levels of categorization. Event‐related potentials were recorded during a passive‐looking rapid repetition paradigm. In a within‐subjects design, priming effects of the same faces, different faces from the same basic‐level category, different faces from the other basic‐level category (human/ape faces), and house fronts were examined. Human and ape faces were first categorized on a superordinate level (“faces”), as indicated by enhanced P 1 amplitude and reduced P 1 latency for faces primed by any faces. Then, human and ape faces were categorized on a basic level. N 290 amplitude and latency were larger for human and monkey targets primed by human faces. Neither human nor ape faces were categorized on the individual level.