The Composite Task Reveals Stronger Holistic Processing in Children than Adults for Child Faces

Tirta Susilo,Elinor Mckone,Kate Crookes,Hannah Turner,Chris I Baker

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006460

Abstract

BackgroundWhile own-age faces have been reported to be better recognized than other-age faces, the underlying cause of this phenomenon remains unclear. One potential cause is holistic face processing, a special kind of perceptual and cognitive processing reserved for perceiving upright faces. Previous studies have indeed found that adults show stronger holistic processing when looking at adult faces compared to child faces, but whether a similar own-age bias exists in children remains to be shown.Methodology/Principal FindingsHere we used the composite face task – a standard test of holistic face processing – to investigate if, for child faces, holistic processing is stronger for children than adults. Results showed child participants (8–13 years) had a larger composite effect than adult participants (22–65 years).Conclusions/SignificanceOur finding suggests that differences in strength of holistic processing may underlie the own-age bias on recognition memory. We discuss the origin of own-age biases in terms of relative experience, face-space tuning, and social categorization.

Highlights

Several studies have suggested that own-age faces are better recognised than other-age faces, a phenomenon usually termed the other-age effect or own-age bias [1,2,3]
As with the more established other-race effect – better recognition memory for own-race relative to other-race faces – the own-age effect suggests that the sensitivity of the human visual system in recognising individual faces is related in some way to the frequency with which that type of face is encountered in the everyday environment
Our results are novel in several ways. They provide the first demonstration that children show a composite effect for unfamiliar child faces. They provide the first comparison of the size of the composite effect for child faces across child and adult participants, and provide the first evidence that the composite effect is larger in the former case

Summary

Introduction

Several studies have suggested that own-age faces are better recognised than other-age faces, a phenomenon usually termed the other-age effect or own-age bias [1,2,3]. Two recent studies have found an own-age bias on holistic processing in adult participants: for adults with no special recent experience with children, holistic processing was stronger for adult faces than child faces [11,12]. Previous studies have failed to find an own-age bias on holistic processing [13,14], despite other demonstrations of an own-age bias on recognition memory [1,15]. Previous studies have found that adults show stronger holistic processing when looking at adult faces compared to child faces, but whether a similar own-age bias exists in children remains to be shown

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