An Own-Age Bias in Young Adults' Facial Age Judgments

Abstract

The present study examined the influence of differential experience with own-and other-age faces on adults' facial age judgment abilities. In Experiment 1, Chinese participants were asked to make age estimates (i.e., in years) for faces within three Asian stimulus age groups: children, young adults, and middle-age adults. Participants showed the greatest differentiation in their age estimates for own-age young adult stimulus faces relative to the child and middle-age adult stimulus facial age groups. Thus, participants' age estimates for own-age young adult faces appear to be more refined relative to their age estimates for other-age faces. In Experiment 2, the same pattern of results was replicated with a group of Japanese participants. The role of differential experience with own-and other-age individuals in shaping facial age perception is discussed.

Evidence for a young adult face bias in accuracy and consensus of age estimates

“…Based on the plan of analysis used by Anzures et al . (), we divided the 21‐step morph continuum into three segments of seven faces, which each represented an age category (young adult faces: 0–30% old, middle‐aged adult faces: 35–65% old, older adult faces: 70–100% old). Before conducting our main analysis, we examined the average perceived age of the seven faces that made up each facial age segment in the morph continuum.…”

“…Stimuli were created using a technique similar to that employed by Anzures et al . (). Four male young adult faces (age range = 19–20 years) were morphed together using Abrosoft FantaMorph to create an average male young adult face, and four male older adult faces (age range = 75–81 years) were morphed together to create an average male older adult face.…”

“…Both stimulus creation and the procedure were modelled after that employed by Anzures et al . () in their examination of age estimates for child, young adult, and middle‐aged adult faces. Face images were acquired from the Center for Vital Longevity Face Database (Minear & Park, ) and resized such that the distance from the chin to hairline was 500 pixels.…”

“…Anzures et al . () found evidence for an own‐age bias in age estimates for young adult participants; however, they did not examine older adults' age estimates nor did they include older adult faces in their morph continuum. In Experiment 1, we thus replicated the procedure used by Anzures et al .…”

“…An alternative way to examine biases in age judgments is to examine sensitivity to cues to ageing within and across participants. Anzures, Ge, Wang, Itakura, and Lee () created a face age continuum by morphing an averaged child face (approximately 11.50 years of age) with an averaged middle‐aged adult face (approximately 35 years of age) in 5% increments, for a total of 21 faces ranging from 0% old to 100% old. Young adults were then asked to make age judgments for faces in three stimulus age categories [child (morphs 0–30%), young adult (morphs 35–65%), and middle‐aged adult (morphs 70–100%)].…”