The neuropsychology of facial identity and facial expression in children with mental retardation.

We indirectly determined how children with mental retardation analyze facial identity and facial expression, and if these analyses of identity and expression were controlled by independent cognitive processes. In a reaction time study, 20 children with mild mental retardation were required to determine if simultaneously presented photographs of pairs of faces were pictures of the same person or of different people (identity matching), or to determine if the pairs of faces showed the same expressions or different expressions (expression matching). Faces of familiar and unfamiliar people were used as stimuli.