INFANT MONKEYS VISUAL RESPONSES TO DRAWINGS OF NORMAL AND DISTORTED FACES

Face-like patterns attract attention from both human and nonhuman prim ates, The present study explored the facial preferences in infant pigt ailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina). Twenty-live subjects looked at 20 paired drawings of adult conspecific monkey faces, and their looking t ime was recorded. The facial features in the drawings were arranged in positions ranging from a normal to a scrambled face. The subjects loo ked at the normal face more than expected by chance (P < .02), suggest ing a preference, whereas the distorted faces were observed randomly. The normal face may have been preferred because the eyes were in a nor mal position within the facial outline. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.