The less an infant stares at an object, the weaker the preference the infant has for that object. Certain abilities of facial pattern recognition are innate in humans, rather than learned. Infants learn to associate the sound of human voices with the images of human faces. The longer an infant stares at an object, the more interesting the infant finds that object.
Researchers have found that, hours after birth, infants are able to distinguish faces from other images. Infants stare at drawings of faces for longer periods of time than they do at blank ovals or drawings in which facial features are scrambled.
Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the ability of newborn infants described above?