We investigated the ability to detect a face among other visual objects in a complex visual array in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children, as well as in adults. To this end, we used a visual search paradigm implemented on a touch-tablet device. Subjects (N = 100) saw up to eighty 3 × 3 visual search arrays and had to find and tap upon a target—a face or a car—among eight objects that served as distractors. Our data revealed a relative face detection advantage, which did not differ in its extent between children and adults. This suggests that, beginning in young childhood and ending in adulthood, face detection performance advances as a consequence of other cognitive functions such as a general advance in visual search performance. Our study closes a gap in the knowledge about the development of face detection—as a prototype for social stimuli and their capacity to attract attention—from early to middle childhood.
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