Authors:	Meinhardt-Injac, Bozana Persike, Malte Imhof, Margarete Meinhardt, Günter
Title:	The sensitivity to replacement and displacement of the eyes region in early adolescence, young and later adulthood
Online publication date:	14-Sep-2022
Year of first publication:	2015
Language:	english
Abstract:	Recent evidence suggests a rather gradual developmental trajectory for processing vertical relational face information, lasting well into late adolescence (de Heering and Schlitz, 2008). Results from another recent study (Tanaka et al., 2014) indicate that children and young adolescents use a smaller spatial integration field for faces than do adults, which particularly affects assessment of long-range vertical relations. Here we studied sensitivity to replacement of eyes and eyebrows (F), variation of inter-eye distance (H), and eye height (V) in young adolescents (11-12 years), young (21-25 years), and middle-age adults (51-62 years). In order to provide a baseline for potential age effects the sensitivity to all three types of face manipulations was calibrated to equal levels for the young adults group. Both the young adolescents and the middle-age adults showed substantially lower sensitivity compared to young adults, but only the young adolescents had selective impairment for V relational changes. Their inversion effects were at similar levels for all types of face manipulations, while in both adult groups the inversion effects for V were considerably stronger than for H or F changes. These results suggest that young adolescents use a limited spatial integration field for faces, and have not reached a mature state in processing vertical configural cues. The H-V asymmetry of inversion effects found for both adult groups indicates that adults integrate across the whole face when they view upright stimuli. However, the notably lower sensitivity of middle-age adults for all types of face manipulations, which was accompanied by a strong general "same" bias, suggests early age-related decline in attending cues for facial difference.
DDC:	150 Psychologie 150 Psychology
Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department:	FB 02 Sozialwiss., Medien u. Sport
Place:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-7742
Version:	Published version
Publication type:	Zeitschriftenaufsatz
License:	CC BY
Information on rights of use:	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Journal:	Frontiers in psychology 6
Pages or article number:	Art. 1164
Publisher:	Frontiers Research Foundation
Publisher place:	Lausanne
Issue date:	2015
ISSN:	1664-1078
Publisher URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01164
Publisher DOI:	10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01164
Appears in collections:	DFG-OA-Publizieren (2012 - 2017)