The special status of sad infant faces: age and valence differences in adults’ cortical face processing

The visual preferences of infants for adult versus infant faces were investigated. Caucasian 3.5- and 6-month-olds were presented with Caucasian adult vs. infant face pairs and Asian adult vs. infant face pairs, in both upright and inverted orientations. Both age groups showed a visual preference for upright adult over infant faces when the faces were Caucasian, but not when they were Asian. The preference is unlikely to have arisen because of low-level perceptual features because: (1) no preference was observed for the inverted stimuli, (2) no differences were observed in adult similarity ratings of the upright infant–adult face pairs from the two races, and (3) no differences between the infant and adult faces were observed across races in an image-based analysis of salience. The findings are discussed in terms of the social attributes of faces that are learned from experience and what this implies for developmental accounts of a recognition advantage for adult faces in particular and models of face processing more generally.

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No evidence of spatial representation of age, but “own-age bias” like face processing found in chimpanzees

Animal Cognition ◽

10.1007/s10071-021-01564-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yuri Kawaguchi ◽

Masaki Tomonaga ◽

Ikuma Adachi

Keyword(s):

Response Time ◽

Face Processing ◽

Spatial Representation ◽

Life Stage ◽

Later Life ◽

Processing Efficiency ◽

Age Bias ◽

Conspecific Adult ◽

Infant Faces ◽

Age Category

AbstractPrevious studies have revealed that non-human primates can differentiate the age category of faces. However, the knowledge about age recognition in non-human primates is very limited and whether non-human primates can process facial age information in a similar way to humans is unknown. As humans have an association between time and space (e.g., a person in an earlier life stage to the left and a person in a later life stage to the right), we investigated whether chimpanzees spatially represent conspecifics’ adult and infant faces. Chimpanzees were tested using an identical matching-to-sample task with conspecific adult and infant face stimuli. Two comparison images were presented vertically (Experiment 1) or horizontally (Experiment 2). We analyzed whether the response time was influenced by the position and age category of the target stimuli, but there was no evidence of correspondence between space and adult/infant faces. Thus, evidence of the spatial representation of the age category was not found. However, we did find that the response time was consistently faster when they discriminated between adult faces than when they discriminated between infant faces in both experiments. This result is in line with a series of human face studies that suggest the existence of an “own-age bias.” As far as we know, this is the first report of asymmetric face processing efficiency between infant and adult faces in non-human primates.

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Neural processing of infant and adult face emotion and maternal exposure to childhood maltreatment

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience ◽

10.1093/scan/nsz069 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (9) ◽

pp. 997-1008 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Aviva K Olsavsky ◽

Joel Stoddard ◽

Andrew Erhart ◽

Rebekah Tribble ◽

Pilyoung Kim

Keyword(s):

Face Processing ◽

Social Communication ◽

Childhood Maltreatment ◽

Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽

Comparison Task ◽

Potential Threat ◽

Negative Valence ◽

Face Stimuli ◽

Infant Faces ◽

Amygdala Reactivity

Abstract Face processing in mothers is linked to mother–infant social communication, which is critical for parenting and in turn for child development. Neuroimaging studies of child maltreatment-exposed (CME) mothers are sparse compared to studies of mothers with postpartum depression, which have suggested blunted amygdala reactivity to infant stimuli. We expected to see a similar pattern in CME mothers. Based on broader studies in trauma-exposed populations, we anticipated increased amygdala reactivity to negative adult face stimuli in a comparison task in CME mothers given heightened evaluation of potential threat. We examined Neuroimaging studies of mothers with childhood maltreatment exposure (CME) (18–37 years old), who performed infant (N = 45) and/or adult (N = 46) face processing tasks. CME mothers exhibited blunted bilateral amygdala reactivity to infant faces. There was no between-group difference in amygdala reactivity to adult faces. In infant and adult face processing tasks regardless of CME, superior temporal gyrus activation was increased for negative-valence stimuli. Our preliminary findings suggest that childhood maltreatment alters maternal processing of infant social cues, a critical skill impacting infant socioemotional development.

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Early and later experience with one younger sibling affects face processing abilities of 6-year-old children

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025412469175 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 160-165 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Viola Macchi Cassia ◽

Valentina Proietti ◽

Antonella Pisacane

Keyword(s):

Perceptual Learning ◽

Face Processing ◽

Early Experience ◽

Sensitive Period ◽

Age Group ◽

Face Representation ◽

Facial Identity ◽

Generalized Inversion ◽

Processing Abilities ◽

Infant Faces

Available evidence indicates that experience with one face from a specific age group improves face-processing abilities if acquired within the first 3 years of life but not in adulthood. In the current study, we tested whether the effects of early experience endure at age 6 and whether the first 3 years of life are a sensitive period for the effects of experience on perceptual learning. To this end, we compared the effects of early (before age 3) and later (after age 5) experience with one younger sibling on 6-year-olds’ processing of adult and infant faces. Unlike children without siblings, those with a younger sibling were equally skilled at differentiating faces of the two ages and showed a generalized inversion effect for both face ages, irrespective of when exposure to the sibling face began. Results indicate that face representation retains flexibility in response to extensive exposure to one facial identity even after age 3, and perceptual learning engendered by early experience continues to affect face-processing skills at 6 years.

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Early aesthetic choices: Infant preferences for attractive premature infant faces

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1080/01650250244000218 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 212-219 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Mike Van Duuren ◽

Linda Kendell-Scott ◽

Natalie Stark

Keyword(s):

Premature Infant ◽

Exposure Time ◽

Face Processing ◽

Configural Processing ◽

Stimulus Exposure ◽

Young Infants ◽

Original Stimulus ◽

The Face ◽

Feature Based ◽

Infant Faces

Previous studies have shown that when newborn and young infants are shown attractive and unattractive adult faces they will look longer at the attractive faces. Three studies with infants ranging from 5 months to 15 months were conducted to examine whether this attractiveness effect holds for infants looking at infant faces. A standard preferential looking technique was used in which infants were shown pairs of colour slides of upright (Experiments 1 and 2, n = 16) or inverted (Experiment 3, n = 16) infant faces previously rated by adults for attractiveness. Although Experiment 1 did not reveal an attractiveness effect, this effect did become manifest in Experiment 2 after increasing stimulus exposure time and replacing three of the original stimulus faces. The attractiveness effect was lost when faces were presented upside down. Findings are discussed in relation to the feature-based vs. configural processing debate in the face processing literature and in relation to the notion that attractiveness is based on presexual maturity rather than “cuteness”.

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Face Inversion Effect Emerges Under Critical Configural Discrepancy

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000018 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 69 (3) ◽

pp. 161-167 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jisien Yang ◽

Adrian Schwaninger

Keyword(s):

Face Recognition ◽

Face Processing ◽

Underlying Mechanism ◽

Inversion Effect ◽

Configural Processing ◽

Major Contributor ◽

Face Inversion Effect ◽

Configural Information ◽

Face Inversion ◽

The Face

Configural processing has been considered the major contributor to the face inversion effect (FIE) in face recognition. However, most researchers have only obtained the FIE with one specific ratio of configural alteration. It remains unclear whether the ratio of configural alteration itself can mediate the occurrence of the FIE. We aimed to clarify this issue by manipulating the configural information parametrically using six different ratios, ranging from 4% to 24%. Participants were asked to judge whether a pair of faces were entirely identical or different. The paired faces that were to be compared were presented either simultaneously (Experiment 1) or sequentially (Experiment 2). Both experiments revealed that the FIE was observed only when the ratio of configural alteration was in the intermediate range. These results indicate that even though the FIE has been frequently adopted as an index to examine the underlying mechanism of face processing, the emergence of the FIE is not robust with any configural alteration but dependent on the ratio of configural alteration.

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