Babies are born into a world full of sensory information that they must learn to navigate. One of the first things they start to recognize is faces. According to Arnaud Leleu, a cognitive neuroscientist, faces are one of the most important visual signals that babies begin to learn in their first month of life.
Research has shown that newborns are better able to categorize faces when accompanied by a voice, indicating that babies may use multiple senses for facial recognition. A recent study published in Child Development by Leleu and his team revealed that infants’ perception of faces is influenced by their mother’s body odor. This suggests that smell plays a role in helping babies recognize faces early on.
The study involved 50 infants between four and 12 months old, whose brain activity was recorded while they viewed images of faces, animals, and objects. The researchers found that as babies grew older, their ability to recognize faces improved, but the influence of their mother’s scent on this recognition decreased. This indicates that young babies may rely more on smell for facial recognition while their visual abilities are still developing.
These findings emphasize the importance of multisensory stimulation in early learning. Using all the senses to help infants learn can aid in the development of concepts, language, and memories. Leleu continues to explore the impact of smell on perception in different age groups and has found that even adults may rely on their sense of smell in challenging recognition tasks.
In addition to faces, smell can also play a role in recognizing other objects. Leleu’s research has shown that adults can use their sense of smell to recognize objects like cars when paired with relevant odors. This highlights the powerful influence of smell on perception and cognition across different stages of life. By understanding how different senses work together in learning and recognition, we can better support cognitive development in infants and adults alike.