Langlois, Ritter, Roggman & Vaughn

FACIAL DIVERSITY AND INFANT

PREFERENCES FOR ATTRACTIVE FACES
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
 Recent studies supported that young infants visually discriminated
among female adult faces based on the adult judged
attractiveness of the faces and that infants exhibit both visual and
behavioural preferences for attractive compared with unattractive
female faces
 There are two assumptions that preferences are only gradually
learned through a lengthy period of cultural transmission and
through exposure to standards of attractiveness extant in the
contemporary media and society.
 There have been previous studies that supported that infants
significantly looked longer at both male and female adult faces
compared with unattractive faces.
 The authors of the present study viewed that it is important to
investigate the generality of these preferences across different
types of faces.
DEVELOPMENT IN FACIAL PREFERENCE

 3 months
 Discriminate familiar from unfamiliar faces
 6 months
 Distinguishfaces by age and sex
 Preferences for happy over angry faces

 Children do not express full blown version of

stereotype that beauty is attractive until 36
months of age
KEY WORDS
 Cultural transmission-A gradually learnt stereotype for beauty to
preferred attractive faces
 Likert-type scale - is a five (or seven) point scale which is used to
allow the individual to express how much they agree or disagree
with a particular statement.
 Prototype: A mental template formed after viewing exemplars
(usually averaged members) of a class or a category
 Averageness: Mathematical average or mean value of the
attributes of the category and represents the averaged members
of the class
 Attractive face: a preferred face that is mathematically average or
prototypical
 Kappa- a conservative estimate of agreement that takes the
probability of chance into account
AIM
 To replicate previous findings with adult female faces
and to determine if infant preferences for attractive
faces extend beyond adult female faces to other types
of faces.
 Study 1
 To replicate previous findings with adult female facial stimuli
 To extend the results to male facial stimuli
 To investigate whether the manner in which male and female
faces are presented influences infant preferences
 Study 2
 To extend the findings to non white faces
 Study 3
 To extend the findings to infant faces as stimuli
METHODOLOGY
 Method: Lab Experiment
 Experimental design: Independent Measures Design
 Sample: infants of 6months and 6 days, opportunity sampling, drawn
from children‟s research lab at the university of Texas at Austin
 Study 1- 60 infants (35-boys; 25-girls) (53-white, 5- Hispanic, 1-
Black, 1-Hispanic)
 Study 2- 40 infants (15 boys and 25 girls); (36-white, 2-black, 2-
Hispanic)
 Study 3- 39 infants (19 boys and 20 girls); (37-caucasian, 2-hispanic)

 IV: Attractiveness, Unattractiveness, male & female faces, infant faces,

black faces, grouped Vs alternative presentation, mothers attractiveness;
DV: Looking Time
METHODOLOGY
 Experimental Controls
 Exclusion criteria-fussing, technical errors, experimenter error, mother
influence, prematurity
 Facial Stimuli- Facial expressions neutral, hair length, hair color was
matched within sex; all male faces were clean shaven, clothing cues masked
 Mother wore occluded glasses so as to not see (avoiding parental influence)

 Right-left, left –right presentation

 Slides paired within sex

 Order of set presentation ( 2 sets of 16 slides), order of slide pair

presentation within sets and order of slide pairing was randomized across
subjects
 Experimenter could not see the screen only the televised image of infant on
visual fixation
 Stimuli
 Study 1- 16 adult women and 16 adult men (half attractive and half
unattractive)
 Study 2-16 adult black women

 Study 3- 16 3 month old male and female infants

PROCEDURES- STUDY #1
 A standard visual preference technique was used in which two
faces, one attractive and one unattractive, were simultaneously
rear projected on to a screen
 The infant was seated on mother‟s lap approximately 35 cm from
the screen
 Each trial block of two consecutive 10 secs trials in which a slide
pair within sex was presented in left right and right left position.
 Infants viewed both grouped (all women and all men separately),
alternating (alternating pairs of males and females
 Infants were given 5-10 min break after eight trial blocks
 Trial length, slide advance and recording of the data were
controlled by a laboratory computer
 Direct and duration was recorded by computer as event recorder.
 Each infant‟s total looking time at each stimulus slide was
obtained by summing looking time at the right and the left side
presentations of the slides
FINDINGS #1
 Infants looked longer at attractive faces than
the unattractive faces, F(1,58) = 4.73
 Boys looked at male faces longer than at female
faces, F (1,34) = 7.66, P<.01
 No significant relationships were found between
mother attractiveness and infant sex, sex of
stimulus face, or attractiveness of stimulus face
PROCEDURES & FINDINGS- STUDY #2
Procedures Findings
 Visual preference technique
 6 month old infants looked
as in study #1.
longer at the attractive
 The study 2 did not included
Black women‟s faces than
(alternating Vs Grouping
at the unattractive faces, F
conditions) and number of
(1,38) = 4.34, p<.05
trials required for each infant
 Infants looked longer in the
was reduced
 Each infant saw four of the
first two trials than in the
eight attractive slides paired subsequent trials
with four of the eight  No significant relationships

unattractive slides presented were found between

in four trial blocks maternal attractiveness and
 Right-left, left right either infant sex or
procedure was followed attractiveness of stimulus
face
PROCEDURES & FINDINGS- STUDY #3
Procedures
 Visual preference
technique as seen in study
2 was adopted.
 Clothing cues were
masked and all faces had
neutral expressions.
 Amount of hair was
equally distributed
Findings
 6 month old infants
looked longer at the
attractive babies faces
than at unattractive
faces, F (1,37) =4.85,
p=.034
 Infants looked longer in
first two trials than in
subsequent trials
FACIAL PREFERENCES- COGNITIVE EXPLANATION
 Cognitive explanation- underlying cognitive or perceptual
mechanisms that enables infant or adults to form prototypes or
perform averageness
 Both infants and adults are capable of abstracting a prototype
after viewing the exemplars of a particular category.
 The prototype of a category because of its unique and
representative member of a category is typically most preferred
member of the category.
 Attractive faces are preferred by infants because they represent
the central tendency or average of the population of facial
configurations and are thus prototypical
EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATION
 Instincts that make newborns to come with awareness
of their own species-specific members (Just like hearing
gull chicks know to peck at the red dot to get food, or
the newly hatched sea turtles run toward moon light to
get in the sea)
 A presence of innate tendency to prefer average values
of the population of faces
 In normalizing or stabilizing selection, evolutionary
pressures operate in favour of the average of the
population of faces and against the extremes of the
population
CONCLUSION
 Preferences for attractiveness appear very early in life, are
consistent across various types of faces, and generalize
beyond visual behaviours to social and play behaviours.
 The basis for preferences for attractive faces may be that
attractive faces are prototypical of the category of faces.
Contrary to the common stereotype that “beauty is merely in
the eye of the beholder”, it may well be that majority of the
perceivers at any age, and from any culture can detect and
prefer a particular type of face ( average of that population)
as attractive. Beauty is (in some part) nature NOT nurture
 Exposure to cultural media does not seem to account for
these preferences; rather preferences for attractive faces
are either innate or acquired with only minimal experience
with faces in the environment.
 Ethnically diverse faces possess both distinct and similar,
perhaps even universal, structural features. These features
seem to be perceived as attractive regardless of the age and
the racial and cultural background of the perceiver.
EVALUATION

Nature Vs
Nurture
ethics Reductionist

Ecological
validity deterministic
Langlois

Use of Standardization
Children of Procedures

Usefulness Application
EVALUATION
 Reductionist- The idea that facial preferences in young infants occur
because of prototypes, is of reductionist. Measuring the perception and
attention processes of infants has ever been difficult. The six month old
infants have also gained social experience of facial stimuli prior to their
participation in the experiment, implicating a stereotyped idea in them about
how faces should look like
 Deterministic- Attraction on the basis of preferred face can be argued for
being deterministic. Young infants idea about standards of beauty is
debatable. The study has explained how, but lacks in explaining why such
preferences are made
 Nature or Nurture- The findings from the present study supports the nature
side of the debate through its cognitive or evolutionary explanation to facial
preferences
 Use of children- Although there is no apparent harm involved in the
experiment, however the use of pictures rear projected on to a screen, and
making them watch continually may lead to picture frustration and fatigue. It
is also concernable if such exposure would affect their visual system, which
is developing still
EVALUATION
 Reliability & Validity- Use of experimental controls and the procedures
adopted enhances the validity, however there is a methodological criticism
that the positions of the facial features, symmetry etc are not dealt with in
this study wherein it is argued that they confound the preferences. The
intra class correlation is a good indicator of reliability of the procedures
adopted. Use of pictures (still life) may diminish the ecological validity of
the study, as quite often attractiveness is just not physical appearance, but
other bodily cues and behaviours.
 Application- Facial preferences in adults implicate right from choosing a
mate to produce an offspring, to social identity, to cohesion and teaming.
Facial preferences in young infants and children indicate influences of
modeling, increase in play and social behaviour, more positive affect and
less withdrawal in adult- child interaction. In general, it may be useful to
understand the attachment system in young children
 Usefulness- Apart from replicating the findings from previous studies, the
present investigation shows us infants ability to discriminate attractive from
unattractive faces regardless of sex, age, and race of the stimulus faces.
 Ethics- Informed consent, right to withdrawal, privacy are implicated here as
there is no mention about them in the study
CIE REVIEW QUESTIONS
 Langlois, Ritter, Roggman and Vaughn investigated babies‟ preferences for different
faces.(a) Name two types of faces that babies looked at for a long time. [2] (b) What two
explanations did Langlois, Ritter, Roggman and Vaughn give for their findings? [2]
 (a) Outline what is meant by the nature/nurture debate in psychology. [2] Using
Langlois, describe whether it supports the nature or nurture view. [3] What problems
may psychologists have when they investigate whether behaviour develops through
nature or nurture? [9]
 Describe two features of the sample in study 1 from Langlois et al (infant facial
preference). [4]
 Langlois et al (infant facial preference) suggested three reasons why study 1 was done.
Explain two of these reasons. [4]
 (a) Outline what is meant by the „developmental approach‟ in psychology. [2] Using the
study, Langlois et al (infant facial preference) (b) Describe how data was collected from
the children [3] (c) What are the advantages of using the developmental approach for
psychologists? [9]
 From the study by Langlois et al (infant facial preference): (a) Outline two features of the
slides used in study 1 to test preferences for adult faces. [2] (b) Suggest why they used
slides rather than real people. [2]
 From the study by Langlois et al (infant facial preference): (a) In study 1, explain how the
parents were prevented from seeing the facial stimuli. [2] (b) Explain why this was
necessary. [2]
CIE REVIEW QUESTIONS
 From the study by Langlois et al (infant facial preference), describe two findings from
study 1. [4]
 Use Langlois study to discuss the benefits of gathering quantitative data.[10]
 Langlois et al investigated facial preference in infants. The infant participants were
shown faces. The researchers recorded how long these infants stared at the faces. (a)
What is meant by reliability? [2] (b) Describe how Langlois et al achieved high inter-rater
reliability in study 1. [3] (c) Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of investigating the
behaviour of children in practical terms rather than ethical terms. Use Langlois et al as
an example. [10] (d) What are the similarities and differences in ethical issues faced by
psychologists when they investigate children compared to adults? Use Langlois et al as
an example in your discussion. [10]