Abstract
Most studies on the development of face cognition abilities have focussed on childhood, with early maturation accounts contending that face cognition abilities are mature by 3–5 years. Late maturation accounts, in contrast, propose that some aspects of face cognition are not mature until at least 10 years. Here, we measured face memory and face perception, two core face cognition abilities, in 661 participants (397 females) in four age groups (younger adolescents (11.27–13.38 years); mid-adolescents (13.39–15.89 years); older adolescents (15.90–18.00 years); and adults (18.01–33.15 years)) while controlling for differences in general cognitive ability. We showed that both face cognition abilities mature relatively late, at around 16 years, with a female advantage in face memory, but not in face perception, both in adolescence and adulthood. Late maturation in the face perception task was driven mainly by protracted development in identity perception, while gaze perception abilities were already comparatively mature in early adolescence. These improvements in the ability to memorize, recognize and perceive faces during adolescence may be related to increasing exploratory behaviour and exposure to novel faces during this period of life.
Highlights
Most studies on the development of face cognition abilities have focussed on childhood, with early maturation accounts contending that face cognition abilities are mature by 3–5 years
Proponents of the late maturation account argue that face memory does not mature until at least 10 years of age and is likely to be driven by experience of faces - by one’s ‘face diet’[13]
We showed that children, adolescents and adults differed in the adaptation of the inferior occipital gyrus (IOG) to different face aspects[18]
Summary
Most studies on the development of face cognition abilities have focussed on childhood, with early maturation accounts contending that face cognition abilities are mature by 3–5 years. Late maturation in the face perception task was driven mainly by protracted development in identity perception, while gaze perception abilities were already comparatively mature in early adolescence. These improvements in the ability to memorize, recognize and perceive faces during adolescence may be related to increasing exploratory behaviour and exposure to novel faces during this period of life. Proponents of the early maturation account, in contrast, contend that experience has little effect on face memory development and that quantitative improvements in face memory after 3–5 years are due to improvements in general cognitive ability[14].
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