Dynamic Face Processing in Infants, Children, and Adults

人脸是我们视觉环境中最重要的刺激之一。我们战斗、逃跑、交配、合作和寻求保护的决定往往取决于成功处理人脸的结果。无法处理面部可能导致衰弱的适应性问题（例如，自闭症）。鉴于面孔的重要性，难怪广泛的认知和神经科学研究一直致力于调查成人的面孔处理能力，以及这种能力如何从婴儿早期发展到成年。然而，尽管我们每天遇到的人脸大多是动态移动的人脸，包括转动、点头、微笑和说话，但我们目前对人脸处理的了解大多来自静态人脸的研究。我们最近由NSERC资助的研究表明，成人和婴儿处理静态和动态面孔的方式截然不同。这一新发现让我们提出了一个根本性的问题：我们目前基于静态面孔的知识是否可以用来解释人类在真实的生活中如何处理动态移动的面孔？在我们最近发现的基础上，目前提出的研究计划继续进行，并大大扩展了我目前的NSERC资助的研究。我们的目标是调查的具体作用，面部运动信息在我们的处理人脸。具体来说，我们将使用心理物理学和眼动追踪方法来研究婴儿，儿童和成人的静态和动态面部处理之间的相似性和差异。我们的项目将弥补文献中的一个主要空白，并提供有关运动在面部处理及其发展中的作用的急需证据。我们希望我们的研究项目的发现将导致对当前理论和假设的重新评估，以及对婴儿，儿童和成人的面部处理的新的和更生态有效的解释的发展。此外，我们的规范性数据将帮助我们评估并训练具有面部处理缺陷的个体（例如，自闭症）使用更多的自然刺激。

Human faces are one of the most important stimuli in our visual environment. Our decision to fight, to flee, to mate, to cooperate, and to seek protection often depends on the outcome of successful processing of human faces. Inability to process faces can lead to debilitating adaptive problems (e.g., autism). Given the importance of faces, it is no wonder that extensive cognitive and neuroscience research has been devoted to investigating face processing abilities in adults, and how such abilities emerge and develop from early infancy to adulthood. However, although faces we encounter on a daily basis are mostly dynamically moving faces that turn, nod, smile, and talk, most of what we currently know about human face processing has come from studies using static faces. Our recent NSERC-funded research has revealed that adults and infants process static and dynamic faces in a dramatically differently manner. This new discovery leads us to ask a fundamental question: Can our current knowledge based on static faces be used to account for how humans actually process faces in real life that are dynamically moving? Building on our recent discoveries, the present proposed program of research continues and extends my current NSERC-funded research significantly. We aim to investigate the specific role that facial motion information plays in our processing of human faces. Specifically, we will use psychophysical and eye-tracking methodologies to examine similarities and differences between static and dynamic face processing in infants, children, and adults. Our project will bridge a major gap in the literature and provide much needed evidence regarding the role of motion in face processing and its development. We hope the findings from our research program will lead to a re-evaluation of current theories and assumptions and the development of new and more ecologically valid accounts of face processing in infants, children, and adults. Further, our normative data will help us assess and perhaps train individuals with face processing deficits (e.g., autism) using more naturalistic stimuli.