Abstract

The present study is aimed at investigating whether face preference in 3-month-old infants and in adults is due, as in newborns (Simion et al., 2002; Turati et al., 2002), to a tendency to explore configurations where a non-specific perceptual property, such as the up-down asymmetrical distribution of the elements is present. Using an eye-tracker apparatus, the results showed that 3-month-old infants and adults prefer looking at the upper than the lower part of a geometric configuration with the same number of elements in the upper and in the lower part (Exp. 1, 2). However, the visual preference for the face is not due to the same non specific perceptual constraints present at birth (Exp. 3, 4).