Discrimination of Strangers by the Three-Month-Old
Maria E. Barrera, Daphne M. Maurer · Child Development · 1981
BARRERA, MARIA E., and MAURER, DAPHNE. Discrimination of Strangers by the Three-MonthOld. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 558-563. The habituation paradigm was used to investigate 3-month-olds' ability to recognize and discriminate faces of strangers. In experiment 1 we used photographed faces judged by adults to be dissimilar, and in experiment 2 we used faces judged moderately similar to one another. Infants in both experiments discriminated between the photographs following extensive exposure to 1 of them. They also recognized something about the face they saw during habituation. This is the youngest age at which the discrimination of strangers' faces has been demonstrated. Previous attempts to demonstrate this ability in 3and 4-month-olds may have been unsuccessful because of limitations in the experimental procedure. The results of these experiments suggest that similarity is 1 of the variables which determines how long infants look at faces of strangers.