Previous studies have shown that when newborn and young infants are shown attractive and unattractive adult faces they will look longer at the attractive faces. Three studies with infants ranging from 5 months to 15 months were conducted to examine whether this attractiveness effect holds for infants looking at infant faces. A standard preferential looking technique was used in which infants were shown pairs of colour slides of upright (Experiments 1 and 2, n = 16) or inverted (Experiment 3, n = 16) infant faces previously rated by adults for attractiveness. Although Experiment 1 did not reveal an attractiveness effect, this effect did become manifest in Experiment 2 after increasing stimulus exposure time and replacing three of the original stimulus faces. The attractiveness effect was lost when faces were presented upside down. Findings are discussed in relation to the feature-based vs. configural processing debate in the face processing literature and in relation to the notion that attractiveness is based on presexual maturity rather than “cuteness”.

A semi-structured interview study, investigating the acquisition of everyday object use in children with autism and developmentally matched controls, is presented. Parents were asked to describe how their child currently used various everyday objects during mealtime and washing routines, the process by which this came about, and any problems encountered in attempting to introduce appropriate object use. Following transcription, the interviews were treated using a method combining phenomenological and content analysis. The statements generated were condensed, using progressive categorization, into three tables of summary statements. These represented the different sources of influence on the children's object use and the problems parents experienced in attempting to guide their child's actions. Relative to comparison groups, parents of children with autism reported that they experienced more problems and used more intensive teaching methods, and that their children were less actively involved. The findings are discussed in relation to the influence of other people in shaping object use and implications for intervention programmes.