Theory L4 - Face Processing 2 Flashcards
Explain the development of preferential face processing.
- From birth, predisposed to look at faces in general
- 6 month old babies do not show a preference for human or monkey faces
- @ 9 months, human infants prefer to attend to human faces
- thought that primates are specialised for recognising members of their own species.
** Depends what they’re brought up with - monkeys raised by humans will show greater discrimination for humans – develops specialisation to what will benefit the individual.
What did Dufour et al. 2005 do to evidence specialised facial processing in conspecifics?
- Presented primates with a series of different primate faces and asked which ones they’d seen before.
- Participants looked for longer at members of their own species, and did not show recognition of phylogenetically close species (aka. show greater attention to their own).
- confirms human and nonhuman primates show specialisation for discrimination of conspecific faces
What evidence is there were own race bias in facial processing?
- due to increased perceptual experience
- show poorer discrim. and worse memory performance for other race faces.
- When convenience store cashiers were asked to identify 3 customers they had served, one african american, mexican and american, cashiers were sig better @ identifying own race customers.
- 3 month old infants showed longer looking times at race-congruent faces (these children were brought up in race-congruent enviros)
What are the implications of the own race bias?
- Bad for eye witness! People will only be good at identifying people of their own race.
How do non-human primates process faces?
- non-human primates more closely related to humans use the configural strategy.
- the further related to humans, the less likely to process configurally.
- Presented chimps and rhesus monkeys with inverted conspecific faces upside down and upright.
- results showed that chimps perceived the illusion, whilst rhesus monkeys did not.
THUS chimps –> configurally
Rhesus –> Featural processing
What is the beauty Halo?
- we bestow favourable characteristics on beautiful people.
we are more likely to
- vote for an attractive politician
- hire or promote and reward an attractive employee
- attend to an attractive friend
- punish an unattractive child
- find an attractive defendant not guilty.
Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?
- Evidence is showing that the constituents of beauty are not arbitrary or culture-bound.
- faces found attractive in one culture are judged attractive in other cultures
- suggests that beauty is innate not learned.
- 3 month old babies show preference to beautiful faces just like adults. –> no external influence
- chickens also prefer to look at beautiful human faces for longer.
perceptions of beauty are perceptually basic and cross-culture
What is averageness?
Francis Galton used faces of criminals and created an averaged face.
He noticed that AVERAGED FACES were BETTER LOOKING than their components.
it is free from irregularities that variously blemish the looks of each of them. Gets rid of extremes.
What evidenced that averageness is more attractive?
- Langlois & Roggman showed that when digitizied and mathematically averaged male and female faces, participants rated the attractiveness of the composite faces than the original faces.
- ratings for 16 and 32 face composies were 1 SD higher than the mean attractiveness rating across individ faces.
What are some aspects of attractiveness?
- Averageness
- Symmetry
- Sexual dimorphism
what’s symmetry?
- the extent to which one half of the face matches the other
- reliably influences receptions of beauty
- more symm faces are judged more attractive in both human and non human faces
- more symmetrical (averaged faces) were rated higher in dominance, attractiveness, sexual attractiveness and health.
- Rhodes et al 1998 - generated 4 versions of male and female models’ faces for original, low, high and perfect symmetry - more symmetrical = higher attractiveness. and more symmetrical women also rated as more desirable as long term partners.
What is a theory as to why we believe symmetry influences attractiveness?
INSINUATES GENETIC QUALITY - fluctuating asymmetries are deviations from perfect symmetry in bilaterally paired structures - they reflect dev instability resulting from genetic or environmental stress.
– Children grown in slums are less symmetrical than those who are better off.
What is sexual dimorphism?
- sexually dimorphic traits increase at puberty - indicate sexual maturity and reproductivity.
- males – testosterone stimulates growth of jaw, cheekbones, brow ridges and facial hair
- females – growth of male traits inhibited by oestrogen, which also increases lip size. - softer features, smaller chip, higher cheekbones, softer brows
What is evidence for sexual dimorphism being an attractive trait?
- Studies have shown more masculine male faces are more attractive for both long and short term relationships
- More recent studies confirm a preference for moderately feminised male faces for long term relationship.
- Hormone levels influence perceptions of female attractveness - roberts et all (2004) showed that women were rated more attractive during follicular phase than during luteal phase.
Other research also showed females groom and dress more attractively during follicular phase
What does beauty tell us?
More attractive people tend to:
- live longer
- have better physical health
- have better mental health
- it is an honest signal of genotypic and phenotypic quality of the bearer - provides a reliable index of health.
we have evolved an exquisite sensitivity to beauty and perceive certain features as attractive because those features are displayed by healthy organisms
