Faces are amongst the most important visual stimuli in humans. The face of others provides an individual with information about one's race, emotional state, level of engagement, gender, and physical health. During the first year of birth, newborns acquire a sufficient amount of information from faces. Infants begin to recognize identities, prefer faces, follow gaze, and develop a sense of connection with others based on facial expressions. However, in order to develop such engagement, infants must attend to faces. COVID-19 has impacted the way infants are cared for due to the implementation of social regulations. The introduction of social distancing and wearing of face masks has influenced the development of newborns. In the article, “Face-sensitive brain responses in the first year of life,” Maggie W. Guy et al. explore face processing and aim to outline developmental changes in cortical responses of faces within the first year of life. In the article, “The implications of face masks for babies and families during the COVID-19 pandemic: A discussion paper,” Janet Green et al. explain the importance of face to face interactions for early attachment of babies with others. They further discuss the impact that face masks have on relational communication and development of children.
In the article, “Face-sensitive brain responses in the first year of life,” Maggie W. Guy et al. examine event related responses to pictures of faces and objects in infants ranging from 4.5 to 12 months old. In the text, Guy et al. state, “Cortical areas in the ventral visual pathway become selectively tuned towards the processing of faces compared to non-face stimuli beginning around 3 months of age and continuing over the first year. Studies using event-related potentials in the EEG (ERPs) have found an ERP component, the N290, that displays specificity for human faces” (Maggie W. Guy et al. 1). The researchers wanted to see the developmental changes in the amplitude of event related potential components in infant processing. These components included but were not limited to P1, N290, and P400. Not much is known about systematic changes in neural responses to faces during the first year of life and little is known of the localizations of these responses. Researchers studied the activity of all the components that are said to be involved in infant face processing with emphasis on their amplitude variation and cortical localization. Maggie Guy et al. found larger P1 and N290 responses to faces than to objects. These components were found to be localized in the lingual and middle/posterior fusiform gyri. In addition to this, N290 amplitude increased with age and results indicated that N290 was a face sensitive ERP component.
In the article, “The implications of face masks for babies and families during the COVID-19 pandemic: A discussion paper,” Janet Green et al. discuss the implications that may exist on the normal development and bonding interactions between newborns and others. Although face-masks are mandatory for the physical well being of all during unprecedented times such as these, infants face the issue of effects on early stages of neurobehavioral development. In the text, Janet Green and her team state, “A mask covering the face may affect the infant's ability to develop facial processing and orientating to or focusing on another person's face...newborns can recognise familiar faces, especially ones where a close connection exists, important because newborns are dependent entirely on their parents for survival and need to recognise them” (Janet Green et al.). Researchers further discuss that in order for children to feel safe, there is a dependence on facial expressions since they rely on their parents facial cues to regulate their own responses and behaviors. Face discrimination may also be affected due to the inability to develop this characteristic due to masks.
Overall, both articles emphasize the importance and developmental process of facial recognition in infants. Guy et al. explores the activation of cortical areas in the brain using ERP’s while Green et al. discuss the implications that masks can have on the normal development and bonding interactions in infants. By recognizing the specific brain areas that are associated with facial recognition, researchers can understand and, hopefully, resolve the issue that face masks present to the normal development of newborns.
References
Conte, S., Richards, J. E., Guy, M. W., Xie, W., & Roberts, J. E. (2020). Face-sensitive brain responses in the first year of life. NeuroImage, 211, 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116602
Green, Janet, et al. “The Implications of Face Masks for Babies and Families during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Discussion Paper.” Journal of Neonatal Nursing : JNN, Neonatal Nurses Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd., Feb. 2021, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598570/.
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