Electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infants

The adult human brain rapidly distinguishes between faces at around 170 ms after stimulus onset. During early brain development, however, face discrimination is thought to require almost twice as much processing time. To re-examine this long-standing assumption, we presented human and nonhuman prima...

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Main Authors: Roman Kessler, Michael A. Skeide
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-10-01
Series:Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929325000969
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author Roman Kessler
Michael A. Skeide
author_facet Roman Kessler
Michael A. Skeide
author_sort Roman Kessler
collection DOAJ
description The adult human brain rapidly distinguishes between faces at around 170 ms after stimulus onset. During early brain development, however, face discrimination is thought to require almost twice as much processing time. To re-examine this long-standing assumption, we presented human and nonhuman primate faces to five to thirteen-month-old infants in an event-related electroencephalography experiment. Using time-resolved decoding based on logistic regression we detected above-chance discrimination of human faces from nonhuman faces in a time window already starting at around 200 ms, originating from occipito-temporal electrodes. There was no evidence, however, for above-chance discrimination of individual human or individual nonhuman faces. These results indicate that rapid face categorization emerges already in preverbal infants.
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spelling doaj-art-99f23014ed3c44f5a548b5e99fb9779a2025-08-20T03:04:50ZengElsevierDevelopmental Cognitive Neuroscience1878-92932025-10-017510160110.1016/j.dcn.2025.101601Electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infantsRoman Kessler0Michael A. Skeide1Research Group Learning in Early Childhood, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstraße 1A, Leipzig 04103, GermanyCorresponding author.; Research Group Learning in Early Childhood, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstraße 1A, Leipzig 04103, GermanyThe adult human brain rapidly distinguishes between faces at around 170 ms after stimulus onset. During early brain development, however, face discrimination is thought to require almost twice as much processing time. To re-examine this long-standing assumption, we presented human and nonhuman primate faces to five to thirteen-month-old infants in an event-related electroencephalography experiment. Using time-resolved decoding based on logistic regression we detected above-chance discrimination of human faces from nonhuman faces in a time window already starting at around 200 ms, originating from occipito-temporal electrodes. There was no evidence, however, for above-chance discrimination of individual human or individual nonhuman faces. These results indicate that rapid face categorization emerges already in preverbal infants.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929325000969Face recognitionInfantsEEGDecodingNeural networks
spellingShingle Roman Kessler
Michael A. Skeide
Electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infants
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Face recognition
Infants
EEG
Decoding
Neural networks
title Electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infants
title_full Electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infants
title_fullStr Electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infants
title_full_unstemmed Electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infants
title_short Electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infants
title_sort electrophysiological decoding captures the temporal trajectory of face categorization in infants
topic Face recognition
Infants
EEG
Decoding
Neural networks
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929325000969
work_keys_str_mv AT romankessler electrophysiologicaldecodingcapturesthetemporaltrajectoryoffacecategorizationininfants
AT michaelaskeide electrophysiologicaldecodingcapturesthetemporaltrajectoryoffacecategorizationininfants