Exploring the morphological and emotional correlates of infant cuteness

Almanza-Sepúlveda, Mayra Linné; Dudin, Aya; Wonch, Kathleen E.; Steiner, Meir; Feinberg, David R.; Fleming, Alison S.; Hall, Geoffrey B.

doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.08.001

Cited by 32 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Therefore, many subsequent studies on baby schema have focused on the babyface schema (Rayson et al, 2017), which provides strong empirical evidence for adults' preference response. This preference response manifests itself in adults' rapid cognitive and behavioral responses to infants' faces (Endendijk et al, 2018), positive emotions (Almanza-Sepdulveda et al, 2018), evaluations (Proverbio, 2017), and a strong willingness to protect and care for infants (Cheng et al, 2015). These studies were of great value in understanding the establishment of human parent-child relationships and promoting good parenting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Do Infant Faces Maintain the Attention of Adults With High Avoidant Attachment?

Long

Wang

et al. 2021

Front. Psychol.

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We investigated whether adults have attentional bias toward infant faces, whether it is moderated by infant facial expression, and the predictive effect of the adult attachment state on it. One hundred unmarried nulliparous college students [50 men and 50 women; aged 17–24 years (M = 19.70, SD = 1.35)] were recruited. Each completed a self-report questionnaire—the Chinese version of the State Adult Attachment Measure (SAAM), and a dot-probe task with a stimulus presentation duration of 500 ms, which used 192 black-and-white photographs of 64 people (32 infants and 32 adults; each person displayed three expressions: happy, neutral, and sad) as the experimental stimuli. The results showed that, at the duration of 500 ms, individuals' attentional bias toward infant faces disappeared, regardless of the facial expression. However, when the interaction between avoidant attachment state and face was controlled, the attentional bias was significant again, and the avoidant attachment state negatively predicted individuals' attentional bias toward infant faces. This indicates that at the suprathreshold stage, there are individual differences in the attentional bias toward infant faces, and high avoidant attachment will weaken individuals' attentional bias toward infant faces. This study advances previous studies that focused only on individuals' attention to infant faces occurring at the early processing stage of attention. The results provide direction for interventions; specifically, changing the attachment state of avoidant individuals can affect their attention to infants, which may promote the establishment of parent–child relationships.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Do Infant Faces Maintain the Attention of Adults With High Avoidant Attachment?

Long

Wang

et al. 2021

Front. Psychol.

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“…As far as we know, we are the first to quantify developmental changes in facial surface in chimpanzees. Although a number of studies have focused on the cognitive processing of infantile shape features in human faces [15][16][17][18][19][49][50][51][52] and non-human animal faces [20,52,53], each of these studies have restricted themselves to human perception of facial features.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colour matters more than shape for chimpanzees’ recognition of developmental face changes

Kawaguchi¹,

Nakamura²,

Tomonaga³

2020

Preprint

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Social primates must recognise developmental stages of other conspecifics in order to behave appropriately. Infant faces have peculiar morphological characteristics – relatively large eyes, a small nose, and small mouth – known as baby schema. In addition, the infant faces of many primate species have unique skin coloration. However, it is unclear which features serve as critical cues for chimpanzees to recognise developmental changes in their faces. The present study aimed to investigate the relative contributions of facial shape and colour to age categorisation in chimpanzees. We used a symbolic matching-to-sample task in which chimpanzees were trained to discriminate between adult and infant faces. Then, we tested how their age category judgments transferred to a series of morphed faces which systematically differed in facial shape and colour. Statistical image quantification analysis revealed significant differences both in shape and colour between adult and infant faces. However, we found that facial coloration contributed to age categorisation in chimpanzees more than facial shape. Our results showed that chimpanzees use unique infantile facial coloration as a salient cue when discriminating between adult and infant faces. The display of their developmental stages through facial colour may help chimpanzees to induce appropriate behaviour from other individuals.

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“…Infant faces with high infant schema traits have been rated as cuter than other infant faces (Borgi et al, 2014). Furthermore, cuter infant faces may elicit stronger positive emotional responses (Almanza-Sepulveda et al, 2018) and stronger caretaking motivation (Glocker et al, 2009a). An electromyography study revealed that unattractive infant faces elicited more corrugator supercilii and levator labii superioris movements which were indicators for negative affect (Bräuer et al, 2005).…”

Section: Cognitive Processing Of Facial Attractiveness In Infant Facesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms for the Cognitive Processing of Attractiveness in Adult and Infant Faces: From the Evolutionary Perspective

Kou

Xie

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Research on the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness has mainly focused on adult faces. Recent studies have revealed that the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness in infant faces is not the same as that in adult faces. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize the evidence on the processing of facial attractiveness in each kind of face and compare their underlying mechanisms. In this paper, we first reviewed studies on the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness in adult faces, including attentional and mnemonic processing, and then discussed the underlying mechanisms. Afterward, studies on facial attractiveness in infant faces were reviewed, and the underlying mechanisms were also discussed. Direct comparisons between the two kinds of cognitive processing were subsequently made. The results showed that the mechanisms for the processing of attractiveness in adult faces and infant faces are mainly motivated by the perspectives of mate selection and raising offspring, respectively, in evolutionary psychology. Finally, directions for future research are proposed.

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Exploring the morphological and emotional correlates of infant cuteness

Cited by 32 publications

References 40 publications

Do Infant Faces Maintain the Attention of Adults With High Avoidant Attachment?

Do Infant Faces Maintain the Attention of Adults With High Avoidant Attachment?

Colour matters more than shape for chimpanzees’ recognition of developmental face changes

Mechanisms for the Cognitive Processing of Attractiveness in Adult and Infant Faces: From the Evolutionary Perspective

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