Abstract:

There has been long-standing debate regarding the mechanisms underlying development in face recognition ability. Theories form the face-specific view argues that the immaturities in children’s face recognition skills is that children and adults use different face processing modes. These theories include featural-configural processing theory, internal-external processing theory, and multi-dimensional space theory.The other theroy argues that children can process faces like adults at an early age,and overall improvement beyond that age is due entirely to the development of general cognitive factors.Based on a review of these two different viewpionts,five suggestions on future researches were proposed.

Key words: Face recognition, Development, Configural processing, Featural processing, Face-space

摘要：

关于面孔识别能力的认知发展机制问题，目前存在两种不同的观点。一种是面孔特殊性发展理论，认为儿童的面孔识别之所以不如成人，是由于儿童和成人对面孔的加工方式不同，代表性理论有部分加工-结构加工理论，内部特征-外部特征加工理论，多维空间理论等。另一种是一般认知能力观点，认为儿童很早就具备了成人式的面孔加工方式，之后面孔识别任务中成绩的提高都可归因于一般认知能力的发展。在对两种观点进行评述的基础上，对未来的面孔识别研究提出了建议。

关键词: 面孔识别, 发展, 结构加工, 特征加工, 面孔空间