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Article Dans Une Revue Scientific Reports Année : 2017

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

Résumé

Human adults and infants show a preference for average faces, which could stem from a general processing mechanism and may be shared among primates. However, little is known about preference for facial averageness in monkeys. We used a comparative developmental approach and eye-tracking methodology to assess visual attention in human and macaque infants to faces naturally varying in their distance from a prototypical face. In Experiment 1, we examined the preference for faces relatively close to or far from the prototype in 12-month-old human infants with human adult female faces. Infants preferred faces closer to the average than faces farther from it. In Experiment 2, we measured the looking time of 3-month-old rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) viewing macaque faces varying in their distance from the prototype. Like human infants, macaque infants looked longer to faces closer to the average. In Experiments 3 and 4, both species were presented with unfamiliar categories of faces (i.e., macaque infants tested with adult macaque faces; human infants and adults tested with infant macaque faces) and showed no prototype preferences, suggesting that the prototypicality effect is experience-dependent. Overall, the findings suggest a common processing mechanism across species, leading to averageness preferences in primates.

Domaines

Psychologie

Dates et versions

hal-01569170 , version 1 (26-07-2017)

Identifiants

Citer

Fabrice Damon, David Méary, Paul C. Quinn, Kang Lee, Elizabeth A. Simpson, et al.. Preference for facial averageness: Evidence for a common mechanism in human and macaque infants. Scientific Reports, 2017, 7, pp.46303. ⟨10.1038/srep46303⟩. ⟨hal-01569170⟩
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