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Author

Francesca Simion

Other affiliations: University of Parma
Bio: Francesca Simion is an academic researcher from University of Padua. The author has contributed to research in topics: Face perception & Visual perception. The author has an hindex of 38, co-authored 98 publications receiving 6236 citations. Previous affiliations of Francesca Simion include University of Parma.


Papers
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TL;DR: The results show that, from birth, human infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in mutual gaze and that, at an early age, healthy babies show enhanced neural processing of direct gaze.
Abstract: Making eye contact is the most powerful mode of establishing a communicative link between humans. During their first year of life, infants learn rapidly that the looking behaviors of others conveys significant information. Two experiments were carried out to demonstrate special sensitivity to direct eye contact from birth. The first experiment tested the ability of 2- to 5-day-old newborns to discriminate between direct and averted gaze. In the second experiment, we measured 4-month-old infants' brain electric activity to assess neural processing of faces when accompanied by direct (as opposed to averted) eye gaze. The results show that, from birth, human infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in mutual gaze and that, from an early age, healthy babies show enhanced neural processing of direct gaze. The exceptionally early sensitivity to mutual gaze demonstrated in these studies is arguably the major foundation for the later development of social skills.

1,199 citations

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TL;DR: Data support the hypothesis that detection of biological motion is an intrinsic capacity of the visual system, which is presumably part of an evolutionarily ancient and nonspecies-specific system predisposing animals to preferentially attend to other animals.
Abstract: An inborn predisposition to attend to biological motion has long been theorized, but had so far been demonstrated only in one animal species (the domestic chicken). In particular, no preference for biological motion was reported for human infants of <3 months of age. We tested 2-day-old babies' discrimination after familiarization and their spontaneous preferences for biological vs. nonbiological point-light animations. Newborns were shown to be able to discriminate between two different patterns of motion (Exp. 1) and, when first exposed to them, selectively preferred to look at the biological motion display (Exp. 2). This preference was also orientation-dependent: newborns looked longer at upright displays than upside-down displays (Exp. 3). These data support the hypothesis that detection of biological motion is an intrinsic capacity of the visual system, which is presumably part of an evolutionarily ancient and nonspecies-specific system predisposing animals to preferentially attend to other animals.

668 citations

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TL;DR: Four experiments are reported that were aimed at elucidating some of the controversial issues concerning the preference for facelike patterns in newborns by showing a visual preference for stimuli that were designed to have the optimal spatial frequency components for the newborn visual system.
Abstract: Four experiments are reported that were aimed at elucidating some of the controversial issues concerning the preference for facelike patterns in newborns. The experiments were devised to contrast the original and the revised versions of the sensory hypothesis and the structural hypothesis as accounts of face preference in newborns. Experiments 1A and 1B supported the structural hypothesis by showing a visual preference for the stimulus for which components were located in the correct arrangement for a human face. Experiment 2 supported the sensory hypothesis by showing a visual preference for stimuli that were designed to have the optimal spatial frequency components for the newborn visual system. Experiment 3 showed that babies directed attention to a facelike pattern also when it was presented simultaneously with a nonfacelike stimulus with optimal spatial frequency for the newborn visual system.

495 citations

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TL;DR: It is suggested that it may be unnecessary to assume the existence of a prewired tendency to orient toward the face geometry, and the idea that faces do not possess a special status in newborns' visual world is supported.
Abstract: This study examined newborns' face preference using images of natural and scrambled faces in which the location of the inner features was distorted. The results demonstrate that newborns' face preference is not confined to schematic configurations, but can be obtained also with veridical faces. Moreover, this phenomenon is not produced by a specific bias toward the face geometry, but derives from a domain-general bias toward configurations with more elements in the upper than in the lower half (i.e., top-heavy patterns). These results suggest that it may be unnecessary to assume the existence of a prewired tendency to orient toward the face geometry, and support the idea that faces do not possess a special status in newborns' visual world.

292 citations

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TL;DR: The authors found that infants are faster to make saccades to peripheral targets cued by the direction of eye gaze of a central face than by the eye gaze itself, but the results of Experiment 2 showed that the pupils of the stimulus face stayed still while the face was displaced to the same extent as the pupils in Experiment 1.
Abstract: Three experiments were carried out with 4 to 5-month-old infants using the eye gaze cueing paradigm of Hood, Willen, and Driver (1998). Experiment 1 replicated the previous finding that infants are faster to make saccades to peripheral targets cued by the direction of eye gaze of a central face. However, the results of Experiment 2, in which the pupils of the stimulus face stayed still while the face was displaced to the same extent as the pupils in Experiment 1, revealed that under these conditions infants were cued by direction of motion rather than by eye gaze. This conclusion was confirmed by the results of Experiment 3 in which the cueing effect was not obtained under conditions similar to those in Experiment 1, except that there was no apparent movement of the pupils. Taken together, the last two experiments suggest that directed motion may be an important contributor to the cueing effects observed following shifts of eye gaze.

254 citations


Cited by
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Journal Article

5,680 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Three types of configural processing are distinguished: detecting the first-order relations that define faces, holistic processing (glueing the features together into a gestalt), and processing second- order relations (i.e. the spacing among features).

1,949 citations

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TL;DR: In more complex organisms more complex systems have evolved to orient the various receptors either towards or away from signal sources in the environment and to prepare the organism to select from arepertoire of behavioral actions as discussed by the authors.

1,783 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The book will undoubtedly be considered a classical contribution to medical literature and is strongly recommended, not only because of the general interest of its topic, but as a reference book on penicillin therapy of hitherto unequalled excellence.
Abstract: MEDICAL LITERATURE has been deluged during the past few years with books and papers on penicillin; but a book which has been produced under the general editorship of Sir Alexander Fleming himself represents a complete and authoritative summary of penicillin therapy as it stands today.' The book contains a series of independent contributions by \"experienced and eminent men who have worked with penicillin in Great Britain\". Their opinions and practical methods differ slightly, and there is some overlapping; but these are not disadvantageous, comparison and contrast lending interest to the reading. In the first or general section of the book Fleming contributes two chapters, one on the history and development of penicillin, introducing some interesting sidelights in the romance of discovery, the other on the bacteriological control of penicillin therapy. In both chapters the information is set out in meticulous detail and with a clarity and simplicity which can be enjoyed by all readers. Fleming also gives the right perspective to the place of penicillin amongst the antibiotics and lays down the principles of treatment. Both chapters are well illustrated and are the most outstanding in the book. Included in this first section also are chapters on the chemistry and manufacture of penicillin and its pharmacy, pharmacology and methods of administration. The second section of the book is entirely clinical, giving each author's view on the use of penicillin therapy in a disease or an infection of some particular region of the body. The entire range of peniCillin-sensitive conditions is considered in twenty authoritative and clearly written chapters; these contain many references and illustrations. Dental and veterinary diseases are also given fairly full consideration. The final section is a condensed resume of much of the preceding chapters and is written for. the general practttioner. This chapter is superttuous: it does not contain enough detall to be of much practical value. The book as a Whole, however, will undoubtedly be considered a classical contribution to medical literature and is strongly recommended, not only because of the general interest of its topic, but as a reference book on penicillin therapy of hitherto unequalled excellence. The typography, although conforming to war economy standards, is clear and the paper is good. There is an excellent list of references and the index is satisfactory.

1,657 citations

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TL;DR: According to this analysis, vulnerability to anxiety stems mainly from a lower threshold for appraising threat, rather than a bias in the direction of attention deployment, and relatively innocuous stimuli are evaluated as having higher subjective threat value by high than low trait anxious individuals.

1,609 citations