Developmental psychobiology
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On the assumption that the ability to discriminate facial expressions has adaptive value to infants during early social exchanges, ethologically based theorists have argued that this ability is innate. Guided by this perspective, we investigated the ability of infants, 4-6 months old to recognize and discriminate facial expressions of anger, fear, and surprise. ⋯ These results suggest that infants can abstract configurations of features that give affective meaning to facial expressions. It is suggested that the differences in habituation to each expression might be the result of their distinct functional signification for the infant.