Age biases in face processing: the effects of experience across development.

In this paper, I review studies investigating discrimination and recognition abilities for faces of different ages in children and adults. Contrary to the earlier assertion that own-age faces are better recognized than other-age faces (own-age bias; OAB), I discuss recent evidence for a processing advantage for adult versus non-adult faces. This evidence is interpreted as suggesting that the precocious and continuous exposure to adult faces may shape the individual's face representation across development. Moreover, by testing how experience with faces of various ages acquired at different times in development modulates face-processing skills, this evidence shows that plasticity of face recognition abilities decreases with age, but early-acquired experience has enduring effects that impact our ability to learn from encounters with new types of faces in adulthood.

[1]  A. G. Goldstein,et al.  RECOGNITION OF CHILDREN'S FACES. , 1964, Child development.

[2]  R. Yin.  Looking at Upside-down Faces , 1969 .

[3]  A. Young,et al.  Understanding face recognition. , 1986, British journal of psychology.

[4]  J. Bartlett,et al.  Aging and memory for faces versus single views of faces , 1986, Memory & cognition.

[5]  M. Rodin.  Who Is Memorable to Whom: A Study of Cognitive Disregard , 1987 .

[6]  A. Young,et al.  Configurational Information in Face Perception , 1987, Perception.

[7]  J. Bartlett,et al.  Young and old faces in young and old heads: the factor of age in face recognition. , 1991, Psychology and aging.

[8]  L. Bäckman,et al.  Recognition memory across the adult life span: The role of prior knowledge , 1991, Memory & cognition.

[9]  M. Chung.  Face recognition: Effects of age of subjects and age of stimulus faces. , 1997 .

[10]  S. Schweinberger,et al.  Asymmetric relationships among perceptions of facial identity, emotion, and facial speech. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[11]  D. Levin.  Race as a visual feature: using visual search and perceptual discrimination tasks to understand face categories and the cross-race recognition deficit. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[12]  J. Brigham,et al.  Thirty years of investigating the own-race bias in memory for faces: A meta-analytic review , 2001 .

[13]  I. Gauthier,et al.  How does the brain process upright and inverted faces? , 2002, Behavioral and cognitive neuroscience reviews.

[14]  D. Maurer,et al.  The many faces of configural processing , 2002, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[15]  O. Pascalis,et al.  Representation of the Gender of Human Faces by Infants: A Preference for Female , 2002, Perception.

[16]  Daniel B Wright,et al.  Age Differences in Lineup Identification Accuracy: People Are Better with Their Own Age , 2002, Law and human behavior.

[17]  E. McKone,et al.  Early maturity of face processing in children: Local and relational distinctiveness effects in 7-year-olds , 2003 .

[18]  T. Perfect,et al.  Adult age differences in unconscious transference: Source confusion or identity blending? , 2003, Memory & cognition.

[19]  Chiara Turati,et al.  Evidence of the Face Inversion Effect in 4-Month-Old Infants. , 2004, Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies.

[20]  R. Bhatt,et al.  Face processing in infancy: developmental changes in the use of different kinds of relational information. , 2005, Child development.

[21]  Steve Stewart-Williams,et al.  Face recognition and aging: Effects of target age and memory load , 2005, Memory & cognition.

[22]  Matthew G. Rhodes,et al.  An own-age bias in face recognition for children and older adults , 2005, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[23]  C. Nelson,et al.  Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of species-specific face processing , 2005, Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience.

[24]  O. Pascalis,et al.  Plasticity of face processing in infancy. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[25]  T. Lindholm.  Own-age biases in verbal person memory , 2005, Memory.

[26]  J. Werker,et al.  Speech perception as a window for understanding plasticity and commitment in language systems of the brain. , 2005, Developmental psychobiology.

[27]  D. Maurer,et al.  Becoming a Face Expert , 2006, Psychological science.

[28]  J. Langlois,et al.  Infants' Differential Processing of Female and Male Faces , 2006 .

[29]  Gillian Rhodes,et al.  Are preschoolers sensitive to configural information in faces? , 2006, Developmental science.

[30]  Matthew G. Rhodes,et al.  Evidence for an Own-Age Bias in Face Recognition. , 2006 .

[31]  Cindy M. Bukach,et al.  Beyond faces and modularity: the power of an expertise framework , 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[32]  Charles A. Nelson,et al.  A behavioural and ERP investigation of 3-month-olds’ face preferences , 2006, Neuropsychologia.

[33]  Y. Bar-Haim,et al.  Nature and Nurture in Own-Race Face Processing , 2006, Psychological science.

[34]  Sarah E. MacPherson,et al.  Familiar Other-Race Faces Show Normal Holistic Processing and are Robust to Perceptual Stress , 2007, Perception.

[35]  Michael J. Bernstein,et al.  The Cross-Category Effect , 2007, Psychological science.

[36]  Ping Li,et al.  Age of acquisition: its neural and computational mechanisms. , 2007, Psychological bulletin.

[37]  Kathrin Cohen Kadosh,et al.  Developing a cortex specialized for face perception , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[38]  O. Pascalis,et al.  The Other-Race Effect Develops During Infancy , 2007, Psychological science.

[39]  N. Turk-Browne,et al.  Age-Related Deficits in Face Recognition are Related to Underlying Changes in Scanning Behavior , 2007, Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section B, Aging, neuropsychology and cognition.

[40]  Kendra Thomson,et al.  Limitations in 4-year-old children's sensitivity to the spacing among facial features. , 2008, Child development.

[41]  Emanuela Bricolo,et al.  Do all kids look alike? Evidence for an other-age effect in adults. , 2008, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[42]  S. Schweinberger,et al.  The age of the beholder: ERP evidence of an own-age bias in face memory , 2008, Neuropsychologia.

[43]  Jennifer L. Rennels,et al.  Facial experience during the first year. , 2008, Infant behavior & development.

[44]  Bruno Rossion,et al.  Prolonged Visual Experience in Adulthood Modulates Holistic Face Perception , 2008, PloS one.

[45]  Marcia K. Johnson,et al.  Young and older emotional faces: are there age group differences in expression identification and memory? , 2009, Emotion.

[46]  E. McKone,et al.  The Composite Task Reveals Stronger Holistic Processing in Children than Adults for Child Faces , 2009, PloS one.

[47]  Short article: Why mix-ups don't happen in the nursery: Evidence for an experience-based interpretation of the other-age effect , 2009, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[48]  V. M. Cassia,et al.  Early Experience Predicts Later Plasticity for Face Processing , 2009, Psychological science.

[49]  O. Pascalis,et al.  Development of the other-race effect during infancy: evidence toward universality? , 2009, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[50]  Elinor McKone,et al.  Early maturity of face recognition: No childhood development of holistic processing, novel face encoding, or face-space , 2009, Cognition.

[51]  Matthew G. Rhodes,et al.  Age estimation of faces: a review† , 2009 .

[52]  A. Memon,et al.  The influence of face age on identification from a video line-up: A comparison between older and younger adults , 2009, Memory.

[53]  Graham J Hole,et al.  Evidence for a contact-based explanation of the own-age bias in face recognition , 2009, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[54]  V. M. Cassia,et al.  Natural experience acquired in adulthood enhances holistic processing of other-age faces , 2010 .

[55]  Gustaf Gredebäck,et al.  Brain activation during upright and inverted encoding of own- and other-age faces: ERP evidence for an own-age bias. , 2009, Developmental science.

[56]  L’effetto "altra età" per i volti di adulto anziano , 2010 .

[57]  G. Schwarzer,et al.  The relationships between processing facial identity, emotional expression, facial speech, and gaze direction during development. , 2010, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[58]  The Importance of Social Factors is a Matter of Perception , 2010, Perception.

[59]  Lara Bardi,et al.  Holistic face processing in newborns, 3-month-old infants, and adults: evidence from the composite face effect. , 2010, Child development.

[60]  Lindsey A. Short,et al.  The development of norm-based coding and race-specific face prototypes: an examination of 5- and 8-year-olds' face space. , 2011, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[61]  G. Schwarzer,et al.  Sensitivity to spacing changes in faces and nonface objects in preschool-aged children and adults. , 2011, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[62]  Michael B. Lewis,et al.  Rapid communication: The own-age face recognition bias in children and adults , 2011, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[63]  Marcia K. Johnson,et al.  WHAT PREDICTS THE OWN-AGE BIAS IN FACE RECOGNITION MEMORY? , 2011, Social cognition.