Young children’s attributes are better conveyed by voices than by faces

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how young children’s vocal and facial cues contribute to conveying to adults important information about children’s attributes when presented together. In particular, the study aimed to disentangle whether children’s vocal or facial cues, if either, are more dominant when both types of cues are displayed in a contradictory mode. To do this, we assigned 127 college students to one of three between-participants conditions. In the Voices-Only condition, participants listened to four pairs of synthetized voices simulating the voices of 4-5-year-old and 9-10-year-old children verbalizing a neutral-content sentence. Participants needed to indicate which voice was better associated with a series of 14 attributes organized into four trait dimensions (Positive Affect, Negative Affect, Intelligence, and Helpless), potentially meaningful in young child–adult interactions. In the Consistent condition, the same four pairs of voices delivered in the Voices-Only condition were presented jointly with morphed photographs of children’s faces of equivalent age. In the Inconsistent condition, the four pairs of voices and faces were paired in a contradictory manner (immature voices with mature faces vs. mature voices with immature faces). Results revealed that vocal cues were more effective than facial cues in conveying young children’s attributes to adults and that women were more efficient (i.e., faster) than men in responding to children’s cues. These results confirm and extend previous evidence on the relevance of children’s vocal cues to signaling important information about children’s attributes and needs during their first 6 years of life.