Left-right facial orientation of familiar faces: developmental aspects of « the mere exposure hypothesis »

We investigated the developmental aspect of sensitivity to the orientation of familiar faces by asking 38 adults and 72 children from 3 to 12 years old to make a preference choice between standard and mirror images of themselves and of familiar faces, presented side-by-side or successively. When fam...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Anouck Amestoy, Manuel P Bouvard, Jean-René Cazalets
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2010-09-01
Series:Frontiers in Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00039/full
Description
Summary:We investigated the developmental aspect of sensitivity to the orientation of familiar faces by asking 38 adults and 72 children from 3 to 12 years old to make a preference choice between standard and mirror images of themselves and of familiar faces, presented side-by-side or successively. When familiar (parental) faces were presented simultaneously, 3–5 year-olds showed no preference, but by age 5-7 years an adult-like preference for the standard image emerged. Similarly, the adult-like preference for the mirror image of their own face emerged by 5-7 years of age. When familiar or self faces were presented successively, 3–7 year-olds showed no preference, and adult-like preference for the standard image emerged by age 7-12 years. These results suggest the occurrence of an early developmental process in the perception of familiar face asymmetries which is retained in memory related to knowledge about faces.
ISSN:1664-1078