Facial Recognition Skills Said to Peak as Infants

Never underestimate the intelligence of an infant. Six-month-old babies can distinguish the faces of two monkeys better than adults or older children, which suggests babies have some early capabilities that do not increase, but lessen, with age, a research team says.

“Babies already have certain abilities, and the environment they are presented with could help them retain some of these abilities,” said Michelle de Haan of University College London.

Rather than starting out as a clean slate and adding on more skills as they get older, babies seem to have a peak time between six and nine months, when their brains take in and process visual information to hone their perception skills, the team reported in the May 17 issue of Science.

“Something important is going on for setting up the way we recognize faces as adults,” De Haan said.

As they get older, she said, the infants’ brains filter out information and their perception narrows so that by the time they are 9 months old they have a more difficult time or can no longer distinguish the differences between the two monkeys.