Infants use knowledge of emotions to augment face perception: Evidence of top-down modulation of perception early in life

While top-down modulation is believed to be central to adult perception, the developmental origins of this ability are unclear. Here, we present a direct, behavioral investigation of top-down modulation of perception in infancy using emotional face perception as a test case. We investigated whether 9-month-olds can modulate their face perception based on predictive, auditory emotional cues without any training or familiarization procedure. …