Preference for facial averageness: Evidence for a common mechanism in human and macaque infants

Damon, Fabrice; Méary, David; Quinn, Paul C.; Lee, Kang; Simpson, Elizabeth A.; Paukner, Annika; Suomi, Stephen J.; Pascalis, Olivier

doi:10.1038/srep46303

Cited by 27 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 95 publications

(136 reference statements)

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“…We found that human infants looked longer and had more fixations on average than macaque infants, suggesting that human infants may have more sustained attention than macaque infants during the first year of life. Previous studies comparing human and macaque social attention (e.g., Damon et al., 2017; Guo, Li, Yan, & Li, 2019) have not directly compared species, as in the present study. In addition, we found that macaque infants spent proportionately more time looking to the social video compared to human infants, indicating that macaques’ relative interest in social stimuli may be greater than human infants’ relative interest in social stimuli, across the first year.…”

Section: Study 2: Human Infant Social Attention Developmentmentioning

confidence: 76%

Human and monkey infant attention to dynamic social and nonsocial stimuli

Maylott

Paukner

Ahn

et al. 2020

Developmental Psychobiology

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The present study explored behavioral norms for infant social attention in typically developing human and nonhuman primate infants. We examined the normative development of attention to dynamic social and nonsocial stimuli longitudinally in macaques (Macaca mulatta) at 1, 3, and 5 months of age (N = 75) and humans at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 13 months of age (N = 69) using eye tracking. All infants viewed concurrently played silent videos—one social video and one nonsocial video. Both macaque and human infants were faster to look to the social than the nonsocial stimulus, and both species grew faster to orient to the social stimulus with age. Further, macaque infants’ social attention increased linearly from 1 to 5 months. In contrast, human infants displayed a nonlinear pattern of social interest, with initially greater attention to the social stimulus, followed by a period of greater interest in the nonsocial stimulus, and then a rise in social interest from 6 to 13 months. Overall, human infants looked longer than macaque infants, suggesting humans have more sustained attention in the first year of life. These findings highlight potential species similarities and differences, and reflect a first step in establishing baseline patterns of early social attention development.

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Section: Study 2: Human Infant Social Attention Developmentmentioning

confidence: 76%

Human and monkey infant attention to dynamic social and nonsocial stimuli

Maylott

Paukner

Ahn

et al. 2020

Developmental Psychobiology

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“…All facial images were scaled and realigned based on eye size and position. To delineate the features of each face, 118 landmarks were placed for each facial image (see Supplementary Figure S1 ) with Psychomorph software 47 , which has been widely used to morph chimpanzee, capuchin monkey, rhesus macaque, and human faces 32 , 35 , 37 , 48 . To average adult and infant face images, we superimposed the adult facial images on one another and the infant facial images on one another.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Kawaguchi

Nakamura

Tomonaga

2020

Sci Rep

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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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“…We hypothesized that faces gazing directly at the viewer would receive the greatest attention compared to faces with averted eyes or heads (Prediction 1c), because these are the most prototypical faces (i.e., symmetrical, average angle; Damon et al, ; Slater et al, ). However, we found that human faces with averted heads and averted eyes received the most attention.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Face detection in 2‐ to 6‐month‐old infants is influenced by gaze direction and species

Simpson

Maylott

Mitsven

et al. 2019

Developmental Science

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Humans detect faces efficiently from a young age. Face detection is critical for infants to identify and learn from relevant social stimuli in their environments. Faces with eye contact are an especially salient stimulus, and attention to the eyes in infancy is linked to the emergence of later sociality. Despite the importance of both of these early social skills—attending to faces and attending to the eyes—surprisingly little is known about how they interact. We used eye tracking to explore whether eye contact influences infants' face detection. Longitudinally, we examined 2‐, 4‐, and 6‐month‐olds' (N = 65) visual scanning of complex image arrays with human and animal faces varying in eye contact and head orientation. Across all ages, infants displayed superior detection of faces with eye contact; however, this effect varied as a function of species and head orientation. Infants were more attentive to human than animal faces and were more sensitive to eye and head orientation for human faces compared to animal faces. Unexpectedly, human faces with both averted heads and eyes received the most attention. This pattern may reflect the early emergence of gaze following—the ability to look where another individual looks—which begins to develop around this age. Infants may be especially interested in averted gaze faces, providing early scaffolding for joint attention. This study represents the first investigation to document infants' attention patterns to faces systematically varying in their attentional states. Together, these findings suggest that infants develop early, specialized functional conspecific face detection.

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Preference for facial averageness: Evidence for a common mechanism in human and macaque infants

Cited by 27 publications

References 95 publications

Human and monkey infant attention to dynamic social and nonsocial stimuli

Human and monkey infant attention to dynamic social and nonsocial stimuli

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

Face detection in 2‐ to 6‐month‐old infants is influenced by gaze direction and species

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