A domain-relevant framework for the development of face processing

Michael Arcaro, Lisa Scott

Abstract: Faces are thought to have a privileged status for processing relative to other visual images. Humans use faces to identify people, learn language, and to communicate and understand intentions, meaning and emotions. An enduring debate within the fields of developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience is whether human face processing is specialized owing to domain-specific neural circuitry driven primarily by evolutionary mechanisms or whether it emerges from a domain-general architecture through experience. In this Perspective, we argue for an experience-based account based on associative and non-associative learning and supported by general neurobiological mechanisms. We posit that face-processing specialization emerges from activity-dependent, self-organizing processes where neuronal connectivity is shaped by the environment and constrained by intrinsic yet malleable neural architecture. This ‘domain-relevant’ framework for face processing reflects a dynamic interaction between the developing brain and the environmental input.