Robust holistic face processing in early childhood during the COVID-19 pandemic

The timing of the developmental emergence of holistic face processing and its sensitivity to experience in early childhood are somewhat controversial topics. To investigate holistic face perception in early childhood, we used an online testing platform and administered a two-alternative forced-choice task to 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children. The children saw pairs of composite faces and needed to decide whether the faces were the same or different. To determine whether experience with masked faces may have negatively affected holistic processing, we also administered a parental questionnaire to assess the children’s exposure to masked faces during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that all three age groups performed holistic face processing when the faces were upright (Experiment 1) but not when the faces were inverted (Experiment 2), that response accuracy increased with age, and that response accuracy was not related to degree of exposure to masked faces. These results indicate that holistic face processing is relatively robust in early childhood and that short-term exposure to partially visible faces does not negatively affect young children’s holistic face perception.