Abstract
Research has demonstrated that how “cute” an infant is perceived to be has consequences for caregiving. Infants with facial abnormalities receive lower ratings of cuteness, but relatively little is known about how different abnormalities and their location affect these aesthetic judgements. The objective of the current study was to compare the impact of different abnormalities on the perception of infant faces, while controlling for infant identity. In two experiments, adult participants gave ratings of cuteness and attractiveness in response to face images that had been edited to introduce common facial abnormalities. Stimulus faces displayed either a haemangioma (a small, benign birth mark), strabismus (an abnormal alignment of the eyes) or a cleft lip (an abnormal opening in the upper lip). In Experiment 1, haemangioma had less of a detrimental effect on ratings than the more severe abnormalities. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the position of a haemangioma on the face. We found small but robust effects of this position, with abnormalities in the top and on the left of the face receiving lower cuteness ratings. This is consistent with previous research showing that people attend more to the top of the face (particularly the eyes) and to the left hemifield.
Highlights
An infant’s appearance has important effects on the way it is judged [1,2,3,4]
There is much to be uncovered about what makes particular infant faces more likeable and how robust this is across observers
Our results confirm that three common facial abnormalities cause the very same infants to be rated as less cute
Summary
An infant’s appearance has important effects on the way it is judged [1,2,3,4]. It has been shown that infants who are perceived as more attractive are more likely to elicit care-giving behaviours from adults [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] and they may lead to a greater level of reward circuitry activation in the brains of adult observers [13]. There is much to be uncovered about what makes particular infant faces more likeable and how robust this is across observers. This is important for the small percentage of infants born with craniofacial abnormalities, such as a cleft lip (an opening in the upper lip which occurs when the tissues of the face do not join fully) or a haemangioma (a small red birth mark). The current studies are aimed at investigating these abnormalities, their impact on preference judgements, and the role of their spatial position on the face.
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