Robust holistic face processing in early childhood during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The timing of the developmental emergence of holistic face processing and the role that experience plays in it are somewhat controversial topics. Using an online testing platform, we investigated holistic face perception in 4-6-year-old children with a two-alternative forced-choice task in which they saw pairs of composite faces and had to decide whether the faces were the same or different. We also assessed children’s exposure to masked faces during the COVID-19 pandemic with a parental questionnaire to determine whether experience with masked faces may have negatively affected holistic processing. We found that children of all ages performed holistic face processing when the faces were upright (Experiment 1) but not when they were inverted (Experiment 2), that response accuracy increased with age, and that there was no relationship between degree of exposure to masked faces and response accuracy. These results indicate that holistic face processing is relatively robust in early childhood and that short-term exposure to partially-visible faces does not negatively affect young children’s holistic face perception.

Effects of face masks on language comprehension in bilingual children

“…With respect to preferences for transparent face shields over surgical masks, children's preferences are not aligned with their parents' views: children have an equal preference for others with transparent face shields and surgical masks, reporting neither as more frightening than the other (Forgie et al., 2009). In addition, the limited research conducted thus far has shown that emotional signaling (Ruba & Pollak, 2020), language comprehension (Singh et al., 2021), and face processing (Yates & Lewkowicz, 2022) remain robust when the lower part of the face is covered by surgical masks. Importantly, there is evidence that children may even be more resilient to masked communication than adults.…”