Appearance-based inferences bias source memory

Abstract

Previous research varying the trustworthiness of appearance has demonstrated that facial characteristics contribute to source memory. Two studies extended this work by investigating the contribution to source memory of babyfaceness, a facial quality known to elicit strong spontaneous trait inferences. Young adult participants viewed younger and older babyfaced and mature-faced individuals paired with sentences that were either congruent or incongruent with the target's facial characteristics. Identifying a source as dominant or submissive was least accurate when participants chose between a target whose behavior was incongruent with facial characteristics and a lure whose face mismatched the target in appearance but matched the source memory question. In Experiment 1, this effect held true when older sources were identified, but not own-age, younger sources. When task difficulty was increased in Experiment 2, the relationship between face-behavior congruence and lure facial characteristics persisted, but it was not moderated by target age even though participants continued to correctly identify fewer older than younger sources. Taken together, these results indicate that trait expectations associated with variations in facial maturity can bias source memory for both own- and other-age faces, although own-age faces are less vulnerable to this bias, as is shown in the moderation by task difficulty.