Biomaterial Database

The ontogeny of face recognition: eye contact and sweet taste induce face preference in 9- and 12-week-old human infants. 2001

E M Blass, and C A Camp

Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and Behavior, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 01003, USA.

Nine and 12-week-old infants (N = 140) who were either calm or crying sat facing a researcher for 3.5 min. The researcher gazed into the infant's eyes with a smiling face or looked above the infant's forehead. She delivered a 12% sucrose solution via a syringe or a pacifier, or she did not deliver anything. After the exposure period, the mother held her infant over her shoulder. Infant gaze direction was recorded while the infant faced the same researcher and a stranger. The confluence of sweet taste and eye contact was necessary and sufficient for calm 9- and 12-week-olds to form a preference for the researcher. Crying infants never did so, even though eye contact and sweet taste arrested crying. Different visual-gustatory combinations induced unanticipated affective states and are discussed within the contexts of cognitive mechanisms that mediate face learning and preference, the proximate mechanisms involved, and the evolutionary significance of face recognition.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D007223	Infant	A child between 1 and 23 months of age.	Infants
D008297	Male		Males
D009633	Nonverbal Communication	Transmission of emotions, ideas, and attitudes between individuals in ways other than the spoken language.	Haptic Communication,Non-Verbal Communication,Communication, Haptic,Communication, Non-Verbal,Communication, Nonverbal,Communications, Haptic,Communications, Non-Verbal,Haptic Communications,Non Verbal Communication,Non-Verbal Communications,Nonverbal Communications
D003448	Crying	To utter an inarticulate, characteristic sound in order to communicate or express a feeling, or desire for attention.	Cryings
D005145	Face	The anterior portion of the head that includes the skin, muscles, and structures of the forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, and jaw.	Faces
D005260	Female		Females
D005403	Fixation, Ocular	Positioning and accommodation of eyes that allows the image to be brought into place on the FOVEA CENTRALIS of each eye.	Focusing, Ocular,Ocular Fixation,Eye Gaze,Eye Gazes,Gaze, Eye,Gazes, Eye,Ocular Focusing
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000339	Affect	The feeling-tone accompaniment of an idea or mental representation. It is the most direct psychic derivative of instinct and the psychic representative of the various bodily changes by means of which instincts manifest themselves.	Mood,Affects,Moods
D000367	Age Factors	Age as a constituent element or influence contributing to the production of a result. It may be applicable to the cause or the effect of a circumstance. It is used with human or animal concepts but should be differentiated from AGING, a physiological process, and TIME FACTORS which refers only to the passage of time.	Age Reporting,Age Factor,Factor, Age,Factors, Age