Abstract:
The present set of experiments was designed to investigate the organization and
refmement of young children's face space. Past research has demonstrated that adults
encode individual faces in reference to a distinct face prototype that represents the
average of all faces ever encountered. The prototype is not a static abstracted norm but
rather a malleable face average that is continuously updated by experience (Valentine,
1991); for example, following prolonged viewing of faces with compressed features (a
technique referred to as adaptation), adults rate similarly distorted faces as more normal
and more attractive (simple attractiveness aftereffects). Recent studies have shown that
adults possess category-specific face prototypes (e.g., based on race, sex). After viewing
faces from two categories (e.g., Caucasian/Chinese) that are distorted in opposite
directions, adults' attractiveness ratings simultaneously shift in opposite directions
(opposing aftereffects).
The current series of studies used a child-friendly method to examine whether,
like adults, 5- and 8-year-old children show evidence for category-contingent opposing
aftereffects. Participants were shown a computerized storybook in which Caucasian and
Chinese children's faces were distorted in opposite directions (expanded and
compressed). Both before and after adaptation (i.e., reading the storybook), participants
judged the normality/attractiveness of a small number of expanded, compressed, and
undistorted Caucasian and Chinese faces. The method was first validated by testing
adults (Experiment I ) and was then refined in order to test 8- (Experiment 2) and 5-yearold (Experiment 4a) children. Five-year-olds (our youngest age group) were also tested in a simple aftereffects paradigm (Experiment 3) and with male and female faces distorted
in opposite directions (Experiment 4b).
The current research is the first to demonstrate evidence for simple attractiveness
aftereffects in children as young as 5, thereby indicating that similar to adults, 5-year-olds
utilize norm-based coding. Furthermore, this research provides evidence for racecontingent opposing aftereffects in both 5- and 8-year-olds; however, the opposing
aftereffects demonstrated by 5-year-olds were driven largely by simple aftereffects for
Caucasian faces. The lack of simple aftereffects for Chinese faces in 5-year-olds may be
reflective of young children's limited experience with other-race faces and suggests that
children's face space undergoes a period of increasing differentiation over time with
respect to race. Lastly, we found no evidence for sex -contingent opposing aftereffects in
5-year-olds, which suggests that young children do not rely on a fully adult-like face
space even for highly salient face categories (i.e., male/female) with which they have
comparable levels of experience.
