Developmental Changes in the Perception of Adult Facial Age

• Published in: The Journal of genetic psychology Vol. 168; no. 4; pp. 443 - 464
• Main Author: Gross, Thomas F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC Heldref 01.12.2007; Heldref Publications; Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subjects: Ability; Adolescent; Adult; Adults; Age Differences; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Aging; Aging - physiology; Art Expression; Biological and medical sciences; Changes; Child; Child Development; Children & youth; Developmental psychology; Evaluation Methods; Experiments; Face; face perception; facial aging; Female; Freehand Drawing; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human Body; Humans; Identification; Inferences; Judgment; Male; Middle Aged; Nonverbal Communication; Older Adults; Perception; Perceptual Development; Preschool children; Preschool Education; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; R&D; Research & development; Researchers; Skill Development; Social Perception; Young Adults; Young Children; Human; Preschool age; face perception; School age; facial aging; Vision; Adolescent; Adult; Face; Child; Age; Perceptual development
• ISSN: 0022-1325; 1940-0896
• DOI: 10.3200/GNTP.168.4.443-464

The author studied children's (aged 5-16 years) and young adults' (aged 18-22 years) perception and use of facial features to discriminate the age of mature adult faces. In Experiment 1, participants rated the age of unaltered and transformed (eyes, nose, eyes and nose, and whole face blurred) adult faces (aged 20-80 years). In Experiment 2, participants ranked facial age sets (aged 20-50, 20-80, and 50-80 years) that had varying combinations of older and younger facial features: eyes, noses, mouths, and base faces. Participants of all ages attended to similar facial features when making judgments about adult facial age, although young children (aged 5-7 years) were less accurate than were older children (aged 9-11 years), adolescents (aged 13-16 years), and young adults when making facial age judgments. Young children were less sensitive to some facial features when making facial age judgments.