ABSTRACT

Reading acquisition has been suggested to drive the lateralization of the face processing system to the right cerebral hemisphere. To investigate whether this developmental co-dependency has a behavioural cost, at least in the short run, we tested whether learning to read reduced face recognition ability. In a longitudinal design, 82 children (5–7 years) were tested twice, at the beginning and end of their first year in school. In both sessions, visual letter recognition, word recognition, sentence reading, and immediate face recognition were tested. Reliable increases were found across all four measures, suggesting no absolute cost of literacy acquisition on face processing efficiency. In addition, we found no evidence suggesting a negative relationship between literacy acquisition and face recognition performance. Indeed, our results were most supportive of the null hypothesis suggesting independence in the development of literacy and face processing skills on the behavioural level.

摘要

已建议阅读读数来驱动面部处理系统向右脑半球侧向化。为了研究这种发展的相互依存关系是否至少在短期内具有行为成本，我们测试了学习阅读是否会降低人脸识别能力。在纵向设计中，对82名儿童（5至7岁）在他们入学的第一年开始和结束时进行了两次测试。在这两个阶段中，都测试了视觉字母识别，单词识别，句子阅读和即时面部识别。在所有这四个指标中均发现可靠的增加，这表明在面部处理效率方面没有绝对的扫盲成本。此外，我们发现没有证据表明识字能力与面部识别性能之间存在负相关关系。确实，