Why Faces are Special to Infants — on Connecting the Attraction of Faces and Infants’ Ability for Imitation and Cross-Modal Processing

Abstract

(from the chapter) propose a cross-modal hypothesis about why faces are attractive and meaningful to infants / faces are attention-getting in part because they look like infants' own felt experiences / this cross-modal correspondence drives not only visual attention but also action / report an experiment on the efficacy of mothers vs strangers in eliciting facial imitation / development of imitation is also investigated / a theory is proposed about the motivation and functional significance of early facial imitation / according to this theory early imitation subserves a social identity function (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (chapter)