How Accurately Do Young Children and Adults Discriminate the Gender of Natural Faces?

• Published in: Perceptual and motor skills Vol. 102; no. 3; pp. 654 - 664
• Main Author: Sugimura, Tomoko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2006; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adults; Child; Child, Preschool; Children & youth; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Discrimination (Psychology); Face; Facial Expression; Female; Gender; Hair; Humans; Male; Perceptions; Psychology - methods; Psychology - statistics & numerical data; Recognition (Psychology); Sex Factors; Visual Perception
• ISSN: 0031-5125; 1558-688X
• DOI: 10.2466/pms.102.3.654-664

The effects of gender-relevant facial features and hairstyles on discrimination of sex of photographed men and women were examined. The stimuli were 36 photographs of natural faces: 9 masculine-males, 9 feminine-males, 9 masculine-females, and 9 feminine-females. Each of the nine faces had one of three hairstyles, hair concealed, short hair, or long hair. 33 children (M age = 5:10) and 28 adults were asked to identify the sex of each stimulus. Children had difficulties with cross-gender faces and cross-gender hairstyles, such as a feminine-male face with long hair. Adults' discriminations were accurate except for masculine-female faces, while children's decisions depended both on hairstyle and internal facial features. Children's discriminations might be based both on their perceptual skill in detecting critical visual features and their knowledge of men and women.