Brief article Development of preferences for the human body shape in infancy

Two studies investigated the development of infants ’ visual preferences for the human body shape. In Study 1, infants of 12, 15 and 18 months were tested in a standard preferential looking experiment, in which they were shown paired line drawings of typical and scrambled bodies. Results indicated that the 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for the scrambled body shapes over typical body shapes, while the younger infants did not show differential responding. In Study 2, 12- and 18-month-olds were tested with the same procedure, except that the typical and scrambled body stimuli were photo-graphic images. The results of Study 2 again indicated that only the 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for the scrambled body shapes. This finding contrasts sharply with infants ’ precocious preferences for human faces, suggesting that infants ’ learning about human faces and human bodie