New study explores how French infants aged 4-12 months use their mother’s scent to perceive faces.
- Research shows that infants aged between four and 12 months use their mother’s scent to perceive faces, with younger infants benefitting the most from this multisensory cue.
- The ability to perceive faces greatly improves between 4 and 12 months, with older infants becoming more efficient at perceiving faces from visual information alone.
- Exposure to concurrent sensory inputs from different modalities is important for perceptual learning in infants, aiding in the development of higher-level abilities.
- The mother’s odor has a strong effect on the perception of various unfamiliar faces in infants, promoting prosocial cognitions and behaviors.
- Future research aims to further explore the role of the sense of smell in the early development of multisensory perception in infants.
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Pediatrics, Neurology