The present study aimed to investigate whether perceptual completion is available at birth, in the absence of any visual experience. An extremely underspecified kinetic visual display composed of four spatially separated fragments arranged to give rise to an illusory rectangle that occluded a vertical rod (illusory condition) or rotated so as not…

A critical question in Cognitive Science concerns how knowledge of specific domains emerges during development. Here we examined how limitations of the visual system during the first days of life may shape subsequent development of face processing abilities. By manipulating the bands of spatial frequencies of face images, we investigated what is…

We investigated newborns' sensitivity to the direction of gaze of another's face by using a preferential looking technique. This study extends earlier work on a preference for faces with direct gaze in newborns. In Experiment 1, we replicate the basic finding of Farroni and colleagues that newborns prefer to look at faces with direct gaze. In…

Evidence from 5 experiments with over 150 newborns suggests that infants are born with some information about the structure of faces. This information, termed CONSPEC, is contrasted with CONLERN, a device for learning visual characteristics of conspecifics. Distinction between these mechanisms allows for reconciling conflicting data about face…