#fantz

Topic: Developmental psychology

Key researcher: Robert L. Fantz

Year:1961

Study type: observation

Research population: infants 

In 1961 Fantz aimed to better the understanding of what occurs in the minds of infants by observing what they pay attention to most as an indication of what they are interested in. In order to carry this out, Fantz devised the ‘looking chamber’. This looked similar to an MRI machine but had patterns hung from the top of it for babies to look at.

Procedure:

The infants were placed in the machine and shown the two different patterns  (a bull's-eye and a human face) and the time they spent looking at each pattern was recorded with the researcher looking through a hole at the top to look at the image reflected in the infant’s eye to determine this. 

The length of time infants spent looking at each pattern would be recorded and compared to decipher what shapes attracted infants the most. This paradigm measures the habituation of infants: looking at what draws their attention and distracts them most.

Results: There were two main studies for this paradigm conducted by Fantz, so I will compile the results of both to give a general outlook of what these studies showed:

Some of the patterns shown to infants included a bull's-eye and a human face. In one study it was found that a 2 month old infant would typically look at the human face for twice as long. Infants also preferred typical faces to scrambled ones

Other studies have shown that from one month old we can follow slow moving objects and comprehend when they are moving away from us

From 3 months of age we can tell our family members apart. .

From 2 days old infants prefer to look at patterns (like bull's-eyes and faces) rather than coloured discs and this trend was present at 2-3 weeks old as well. 

Infants develop racial preferences from the age of 9 months - white infants only recognised faces of their own race, showing racial preference.

Conclusion:

This paradigm has helped to show that we are innately programmed to recognise human faces and are born with the ability to analyse a human face in detail for evolutionary purposes - hence why infants looked at a regular human face longer than a scrambled one - they both had the same features, one just resembled the human face more. This is an evolutionary function as infants rely on adult humans to take care of them and meet their needs in order for them to survive, so it important that we are able to recognise a human face so we can draw their attention and encourage them to look after us. The fact that infants do indeed pay attention to human faces has been supported by studies that have shown how infants imitate the facial gestures of adults, such as smiling and tongue protrusion. Infants also show size and shape constancy (they are able to comprehend these things) which shows that infants do not have to learn what to look at, just what it means (Alan Slater). It has also been shown that the other-face effect can come into place from a young age, suggesting it is important to expose an infant to faces of different races in order to help them be more tolerant and adapt in adulthood. In short, this paradigm has enabled research to expose us to the complexity of the infant brain, showing that nature does indeed play an important part in the learning process.