Attentional bias toward infant faces – Review of the adaptive and clinical relevance

Lucion, Marta Knijnik; Oliveira, Vanessa Farias; Bizarro, Lisiane; Bischoff, Adrianne Rahde; Silveira, Patrícia Pelufo; Kauer-Sant’Anna, Márcia

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2017.01.008

Cited by 48 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…Moreover, the general finding that participants responded more quickly to valid probes than invalid probes, regardless of the age or ethnicity of the preceding face, reflects an expected automatic orienting of attention toward exogenous cues (Brosch et al, ; Posner, ). These results also suggest that selective attention is typically biased toward biologically relevant stimuli given that our valid trials elicited more attention‐grabbing mechanisms than invalid trials (Lucion et al, ). That is, participants’ attention was oriented automatically to the face regardless of age or ethnicity.…”

Section: Experiments 1 Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Preferential attention to same‐and other‐ethnicity infant faces does not fully overcome the other‐race effect

et al. 2019

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Given the attentional and motivational saliency of infant faces, triggered by a set of perceptual baby schema features, other‐ethnicity infant faces may overcome the processing differences associated with the other‐race effect (ORE). Using an attentional bias paradigm, we found that while there was a same‐ethnicity attentional bias for adult faces, there was no difference in attention to same‐ and other‐ethnicity infant faces, suggesting that other‐ethnicity infant faces are equally salient and not subject to the same bias as other‐ethnicity adult faces. To directly measure the ORE, we used a recognition memory test to measure differences between same‐ and other‐ethnicity infant and adult faces. Regardless of age, same‐ethnicity faces were better remembered than other‐ethnicity faces. Further, regardless of ethnicity, adult faces were better remembered than infant faces, a finding consistent with an Other Age Effect. Taken together, these experiments suggest that the saliency of baby schema does not fully overcome the social or perceptual factors leading to the ORE.

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Section: Experiments 1 Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Preferential attention to same‐and other‐ethnicity infant faces does not fully overcome the other‐race effect

et al. 2019

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“…This phenomenon motivates adults to care for babies, resulting in a significant response, that is, a strong viewing motivation in response to infants (see review in Swain, 2017). Third, adults' attentional bias towards infant faces suggests that infant faces possess biological valence because they are prioritised in the human cognitive processing system (see review in Lucion et al, 2017). This phenomenon results in focused attention and sensitive caregiver responses (see review in Swain et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The typical appearance of the baby schema mainly entails the facial structure (i.e., the babyface schema), and the effect of the babyface schema can be further generalised to adults, other species, and non-living objects, resulting in the so-called “babyface stereotype” (Sparko & Zebrowitz, 2011). Studies investigating the effect of the babyface schema have recently discovered that in addition to arousing adults’ positive emotions, the babyface schema can also induce adult attentional bias (Lucion et al, 2017). These effects can further lead to care-oriented adult actions and reactions (Nittono et al, 2012) and enhanced viewing motivation (Hahn et al, 2013; Parsons, Young, Kumari, et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adults’ responses to infant faces: Neutral infant facial expressions elicit the strongest baby schema effect

Jia

Ding

Cheng

et al. 2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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The effect of the babyface schema includes three typical responses, namely, the preference response, viewing motivation, and attention bias towards infant faces. It has been theorised that these responses are primarily influenced by infants’ facial structures. However, recent studies have revealed the moderating role of facial expression, suggesting that the strongest effect of the babyface schema may be related to the neutral facial expression; this hypothesis remains to be tested. In this study, the moderating role of facial expression was assessed in three successive experiments (total N = 402). We used a series of images of the same face with multiple expression-standardised images of infants and adults to control for facial structure. The results indicated that the effect sizes of the babyface schema (i.e., response differences between infants and adults) were different for multiple expressions of the same face. Specifically, the effect sizes of neutral faces were significantly greater than those of happy and sad faces according to the preference response (experiment 1, N = 90), viewing motivation (experiment 2, N = 214), and attentional bias (experiment 3, N = 98). These results empirically confirm that neutral infant facial expressions elicit the strongest effect of the babyface schema under the condition of using adult faces as a comparison baseline and matching multiple expressions of the same face.

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“…The link between kawaii feelings and attention is twofold. First, cute stimuli such as infant faces attract attention via bottom-up processes (Brosch et al, 2007;Lucion et al, 2017). This process can occur at a very early stage of visual processing (Brosch et al, 2008) and lasts for several seconds (Nittono and Ihara, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Viewing Cute Pictures on Quiet Eye Duration and Fine Motor Task Performance

2020

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We investigated if viewing cute pictures could improve fine motor skills and prolong quiet eye (QE) duration. QE is a gaze phenomenon, and its duration (i.e., the period between fixation onset preceding a critical movement and fixation offset) is thought to represent attention control. As it has been reported that QE duration is longer for expert athletes than for novice athletes in various sports and becomes shorter even for experts who choke under pressure during games, resulting in performance deterioration, QE prolongation is important to prevent choking under pressure. Separately, several studies have confirmed that viewing cute pictures can induce focal attention, thus improving performance in fine motor tasks. We hypothesized that viewing cute pictures may modulate attention control and prolong QE duration. We also tested if the beneficial effects of viewing cute pictures could be obtained in a high-pressure situation in which participant performance was evaluated by an experimenter. We used a fine-motor task requiring participants to use a pair of tweezers to remove 12 small pieces from holes in a game board. We randomly assigned participants to either the baby-animal pictures group or the adult-animal pictures group, based on pictures viewed prior to the task. Participants executed the task in a pre-test, post-test, and pressure test. In both the post-test and the pressure test, participants viewed seven photographs of either baby animals or adult animals before execution of the task. In accordance with previous research, task precision increased after viewing pictures of baby animals in both the post-test and pressure test. Furthermore, QE duration was also prolonged after viewing cute pictures in the post-test, but not in the pressure test. Neither performance improvement nor QE prolongation was found after viewing pictures of adult animals. These results suggested that simply viewing cute pictures could prolong QE duration without pressure and might provide a beneficial effect on performance, even in a high-pressure situation.

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Attentional bias toward infant faces – Review of the adaptive and clinical relevance

Cited by 48 publications

References 77 publications

Preferential attention to same‐and other‐ethnicity infant faces does not fully overcome the other‐race effect

Preferential attention to same‐and other‐ethnicity infant faces does not fully overcome the other‐race effect

Adults’ responses to infant faces: Neutral infant facial expressions elicit the strongest baby schema effect

Effects of Viewing Cute Pictures on Quiet Eye Duration and Fine Motor Task Performance

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