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Elsevier, Infant Behavior & Development, 4(37), p. 676-681

DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.08.009

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Female face preference in 4-month-olds: The importance of hairline

Journal article published in 2014 by Anne Hillairet de Boisferon ORCID, Anne Hillairet de Boisferon, Lesley Uttley, Paul C. Quinn, Kang Lee, Olivier Pascalis ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

At 3–4 months of age, infants respond to gender information in human faces. Specifically, young infants display a visual preference toward female over male faces. In three experiments, using a visual preference task, we investigated the role of hairline information in this bias. In Experiment 1, we presented male and female composite faces with similar hairstyles to 4-month-olds and observed a preference for female faces. In Experiment 2, the faces were presented, but in this instance, without hairline cues, and the preference was eliminated. In Experiment 3, using the same cropping to eliminate hairline cues, but with feminized female faces and masculinized male faces, infants’ preference toward female faces was still not in evidence. The findings show that hairline information is important in young infants’ preferential orientation toward female faces.