Infants' recognition memory for faces,☆☆

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Abstract

Infants' recognition memory, defined by novelty preferences, was found to be reliably greater when one properly oriented representation of a face was to be distinguished from another than when the same faces rotated 180° were to be differentiated. Discriminations among upright faces occurred at 5 to 6 months, were more easily accomplished by females, and were facilitated by increasing the similarity of the representations to real faces.

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    This investigation was supported in part by a Grant to R. L. Fantz from the National Institutes of Health (HD-14120), a Grant to the author from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH-19448), and a Research Carcer Development Grant to the author from the National Institute of Child Health and Development (1K04 HD 70144-01). The author is indebted to Robert L. Fantz for his encouragement and advice. The assistance of Patsy Conces, Barbara Gordon, Barbara Mozynski, Joan South, and Margie Subranni in Testing subjects and aiding in the scoring and analysis of data is gratefully acknowledged.

    ☆☆

    Author's address: Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106.

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