Do infants smile when recognizing familiar faces or voices

Bertin and Striano (2006) demonstrated that even 6-week-old infants are able to imitate maternal smiling and respond sensitive to the still-face periods with decreasing of positive affect.

As compared to a neutral expression, a smile increases infants’ attentional preference for familiar over unfamiliar face gender because infants attend more to smiling faces (Bayet et al., 2015). Although Bayet et al.

Results showed that at 6 and at 10 months infants’ behavior did not differ between conditions, whereas at 14 months infants were more likely to show a change from neutral/negative affect to positive affect in the no mask condition than in the mask condition. Moreover, at 14 months infants were less likely to respond positively to the experimenter’s smile (across conditions) than at 6 and at 10 months.

In Study 1, infants who engaged in higher proportions of smiling in the still-face procedure subsequently displayed higher levels of anticipatory smiling. That is, infants who used smiling to attempt to regain the attention of a familiar, unresponsive partner (the parent) tended to communicate ...

The current study examines the frequency, duration, and coordination of the component parts of social smiling—looks to caregiver and smiles—during face-to-face interactions with a caregiver. We examined the percent of the interaction that the infant spent looking to the caregiver’s face, the number of looks to caregiver per minute, and look duration.

We held infant facial expression constant as the N170 is modulated by emotional expression (e.g., Blau, Maurer, Tottenham, & McCandliss, 2007). For example, smiles, as compared to neutral expressions, increase the subjective familiarity of faces (Baudouin, Gilibert, Sansone, & Tiberghien, 2000), ...

Shortly after birth, your baby will prefer your face over a stranger’s face and may even show you a smile! In addition, your baby is using their sense of smell to recognize their mother.

By the second or third month of life, babies begin smiling in response to the sound of familiar voices. They engage in “smile talk,” which can include gurgling or making other noises to attract attention and then beaming enthusiastically ...

Her smile caught her parent's attention, and she got a warm smile back in return. In this way, the baby starts to feel good that she knows how to control her own little world in other ways besides crying and fussing. Some babies may not be ready at first to watch a parent's face for a long time. It may be just too overwhelming for them to look directly into their parent's eyes. By looking just past a parent's face, a baby still is learning about the parent's touch, gentle voice, and facial expressions.