Sensitivity to spacing information increases more for the eye region than for the mouth region during childhood
(2013) International Journal of Behavioral Development — Vol. 37, n° 2, p. 166-171 (2013)
Files
pdfdocument.pdf
Restricted Access - Adobe PDF
- 332.09 KB
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- Sensitivity to spacing information within faces improves with age and reaches maturity only at adolescence. In this study, we tested 6–16- year-old children’s sensitivity to vertical spacing when the eyes or the mouth is the facial feature selectively manipulated. Despite the sim- ilar discriminability of these manipulations when they are embedded in inverted faces (Experiment 1), children’s sensitivity to spacing infor- mation manipulated in upright faces improved with age only when the eye region was concerned (Experiment 2). Moreover, children’s ability to process the eye region did not correlate with their selective visual attention, marking the automation of the mechanism (Experi- ment 2). In line with recent findings, we suggest here that children rely on a holistic/configural face processing mechanism to process the eye region, composed of multiple features to integrate, which steadily improves with age.
- Affiliations
Citations
de Heering, A., & Schiltz, C. (2013). Sensitivity to spacing information increases more for the eye region than for the mouth region during childhood. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 37(2), 166-171. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025412467727 (Original work published 2013)