Study reveals infants use mother’s scent to perceive faces

A recent study has revealed that infants use mother’s scent to recognize faces. Researchers from various institutions collaborated to explore how babies perceive faces through the scent of their mothers, understanding interesting findings that throw new light on early sensory development.

The study, conducted by a team including Dr. Arnaud Leleu who is an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Université de Bourgogne’s Center for Taste, Smell, and Feeding Sciences (CSGA). They examined the role of olfaction in the visual perception of infants. The researchers found that this specific ability to perceive faces improves usually and significantly between four and 12 months of age. Interestingly, as infants grow older, they primarily rely on visual information to recognize faces, decreasing the need for sensory cues.

Dr. Leleu expressed his interest in sensory perception by stating, “I have a longstanding interest in how sensory perception works in the human brain. Despite its apparent simplicity (e.g., we open our eyes to see), perception is a complex neurocognitive ability derived from past experience with various simulations coming from all the senses at the same time.”

Understanding how the young infant brain processes multisensory inputs is important for grasping how perception develops into adulthood. Dr. Leleu’s research aims to investigate how the development of visual perception is influenced by olfactory stimuli in infants’ brains.

The study revealed that the rapid perception of faces, increased by the mother’s scent, diminishes as infants grow older and become capable of recognizing faces through visual cues alone. This finding emphasises the importance of early exposure to sensory inputs from different modalities for learning.

Dr. Leleu highlighted the significance of these findings, saying, “Together with the large body of research on multisensory perception in infants, our findings reveal the importance of the early exposure to concurrent sensory inputs from different modalities for perceptual learning.”

He further explained that such early exposure to repeated intersensory associations is crucial for the development of higher-level cognitive abilities. “Such early exposure to repeated intersensory associations is also a building block for the later development of higher-level abilities such as semantic memory, language, and conceptual reasoning. It is therefore important to expose infants to a variety of cues related to the same objects as early as possible,” Dr. Leleu added.

The study’s findings have its implications for understanding the developmental processes in infants. It suggests that providing a proper sensory environment can enhance cognitive development and improve abilities. By knowing the importance of multisensory inputs, caregivers can create more better strategies to support early learning and development.

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