Theories that say that visual perception is a process that identifies objects based on the features they possess (like shape, color, size, orientation) are supported by the everyday experiences of seeing things such as faces, circles, and flowers. We seem to be especially good at recognizing certain kinds of patterns – ones we see frequently – and we can often recognize them in something as simple as a cloud or a face.
While the claim that we are born with an innate ability to recognize faces is not entirely accurate, it does appear that babies are capable of recognizing faces much earlier than previously thought. In fact, research shows that infants under the age of one month old are able to learn new faces after only seeing them once or twice. For older children, however, recognition skills appear to develop little by little. In addition, studies show that toddlers between the ages of two and three months develop an intuitive understanding of other people’s emotions. At around three months old, they begin to display what psychologists call ‘theory-of mind’—the ability to understand how others think—and by the age of four months, they start showing signs of empathy.
