Selective Preference for Dominance Traits from Female Faces in 2-year-olds

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Abstract

Human adults make rapid and automatic judgements of the character of faces (e.g. if someone is dominant or assertive; Willis & Todorov, 2006). These judgements have a lasting impact not only on low-level processes (e.g. how faces are processed), but also on higher-level decision-making processes (e.g. election results; Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005). So far it is unclear whether character judgement of faces is learnt through experience or whether this is an inherent step of face evaluation from early on in infancy. In a set of three experiments, we employed a visual preference paradigm to study 2-year-old toddlers’ sensitivity to dominance traits from different types of faces ranging in familiarity. All face stimuli were judged for dominance by adults and matched in attractiveness.
Experiment 1 (N=16) tested the visual preference for natural female faces (high familiarity). When faces were presented upright, toddlers showed a preference for the dominant character, but no preference was found when the same stimuli were inverted. Experiment 2 (N=16) presented natural male faces (moderate familiarity) and no preference was found for the upright or inverted conditions. Experiment 3 (N=16) presented artificial morphed faces (no familiarity) and toddlers showed no sensitivity to dominance traits in either the upright or inverted conditions.
Taken together, these results show that early in development infants prefer to look longer at faces judged as dominant by adults, but only in the case of very familiar types of faces (here, same race female faces). One possible interpretation of these results is that sensitivity to dominance traits from faces is primarily the product of extensive experience, that begins to unfold in the second year of life. Yet further studies are needed to confirm that infants are indeed capable of extracting dominance traits from faces.

Authors

• Cristina Ioana Galusca, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
  Presenting Author

• Martial Mermillod, Université Grenoble Alpes
  Non-Presenting Author

• Olivier Pascalis, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
  Non-Presenting Author