Infant Visual Processing with Gender as a Facial Feature:
Does Gender Engage Infants’ Attention as a Fundamental Characteristic of Faces?
There are a plethora of descriptive words that can be used to adequately describe a face. One could use attractiveness, color, size of individual features or many other aspects when describing the physical appearance of a face. Gender is often used as an identifier when describing another person’s face. What about infants? When an infant views adult faces, is gender an identifier that they use to discriminate between them?
Research has shown that when a male and female face are placed side-by-side, infants do in fact discriminate between the two and also show a preference for one sex over the other (Ramsey-Rennels …show more content…
(Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater, & Pascalis, 2002; Ramsey-Rennels & Langlois, 2006; Ramsey, Langlois, & Marti, 2005) Quinn et al.’s (2002) research revealed that when an infant is shown a male and female face side-by-side, infants discriminate and look longer at the female face. Researchers have suggested many explanations for why infants pay more attention to female faces when compared to male faces including differences in experience due to a primary caregiver (Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater & Pascalis, 2002), preferences for a more attractive prototype (Ramsey-Rennels & Langlois, 2005; Hume & Montgomerie, 2001; Oliver-Rodriguez, Guan & Johnston, 1999; Vokey & Read, 1992) and feature-variation differences in male and female faces due to sex hormone differences (Thornhill & Gangestad, 1993, 1999), higher rating of typicality of the majority of female faces (Vokey & Read, 1988, 1992), and greater facial feature proportion measurements in male faces. (Farkas & Monro, 1987) For all of these reasons, it is known that when compared to a male face side-by-side, an infant will look at the female face longer (Ramsey-Rennels & Langlois, 2006). Specifically, an infant will pay more attention to a female face than a male
Does Gender Engage Infants’ Attention as a Fundamental Characteristic of Faces?
There are a plethora of descriptive words that can be used to adequately describe a face. One could use attractiveness, color, size of individual features or many other aspects when describing the physical appearance of a face. Gender is often used as an identifier when describing another person’s face. What about infants? When an infant views adult faces, is gender an identifier that they use to discriminate between them?
Research has shown that when a male and female face are placed side-by-side, infants do in fact discriminate between the two and also show a preference for one sex over the other (Ramsey-Rennels …show more content…
(Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater, & Pascalis, 2002; Ramsey-Rennels & Langlois, 2006; Ramsey, Langlois, & Marti, 2005) Quinn et al.’s (2002) research revealed that when an infant is shown a male and female face side-by-side, infants discriminate and look longer at the female face. Researchers have suggested many explanations for why infants pay more attention to female faces when compared to male faces including differences in experience due to a primary caregiver (Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater & Pascalis, 2002), preferences for a more attractive prototype (Ramsey-Rennels & Langlois, 2005; Hume & Montgomerie, 2001; Oliver-Rodriguez, Guan & Johnston, 1999; Vokey & Read, 1992) and feature-variation differences in male and female faces due to sex hormone differences (Thornhill & Gangestad, 1993, 1999), higher rating of typicality of the majority of female faces (Vokey & Read, 1988, 1992), and greater facial feature proportion measurements in male faces. (Farkas & Monro, 1987) For all of these reasons, it is known that when compared to a male face side-by-side, an infant will look at the female face longer (Ramsey-Rennels & Langlois, 2006). Specifically, an infant will pay more attention to a female face than a male