Research Focus Developing a cortex specialized for face perception

Recent developmental functional magnetic resonance imagingstudiesprovideevidence that thecortical special-ization for face perception observed in adults emerges only gradually over the first decade of childhood. These developmental results provide a middle-ground view on the long-standing debate in the literature from adults about the specificity or otherwise of face-sensitive areas of cortex. According to this developmental perspective, certain cortical regions become specialized for face per-ception in adults, partly as a result of a decade or more of experience and partly as a result of initial biases