look news india
IANS: Researchers have provided interesting information about children's physical development as well as their ability to recognize people. A recent study suggests that babies aged four to 12 months use their mother's smell to recognize faces. As children grow up, they become more adept at understanding faces from visual information alone.
The research findings were published Thursday in the Journal of Child Development. Studies have shown that babies benefit most from their mother's smell and their vision improves significantly. Researchers at France's Université de Bourgogne and the University of Hamburg said that as children grow up, the ratio of smell to their vision decreases. Thus there comes a time when they no longer need smell to recognize someone. The purpose of the study was to determine whether visual facilitation by smell gradually decreases as children grow up and become able to recognize faces from visual information alone.
To understand this development in children, the research team examined 50 children between four and 12 months of age. It found that the face-selective EEG response increased and became more complex between four and 12 months. This is indicative of improved facial perception as children develop. This confirms the inverse relationship between the effectiveness of visual perception and its sensitivity to smell.