Do the right and left hemispheres attend to the same visuospatial information within a face in infancy?

Four- to 10-month-old infants process different information within geometri cal patterns with each of the 2 hemispheres (Deruelle & de Schonen 1991, 19 95). This study was designed to test whether this early difference between the hemispheres' modes of processing also holds in the case of face process ing. Four- to 10-month-old participants had to discriminate and recognize w ith each hemi-visual field the 2 members of a pair of faces. There were 3 p airs of faces that differed by either eye shape, eye size, or eye orientati on. The results confirmed the predictions made on the basis of adult studie s and infants' hemispheric differences in geometrical pattern processing: A left hemisphere advantage was observed in the case of the Ist pair of face s and a right hemisphere advantage with the 2nd and 3rd pairs. It is sugges ted that the early right hemisphere advantage over the left observed by de Schonen and Mathivet (1990) in face recognition by 4- to 9-month-old infant s may be mainly based on the difference in the kind of visuospatial informa tion processed by each hemisphere.