Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University.
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University
Psychol Sci. 2016 Nov;27(11):1461-1473. doi: 10.1177/0956797616663142. Epub 2016 Sep 22.
Puberty prepares mammals to sexually reproduce during adolescence. It is also hypothesized to invoke a social metamorphosis that prepares adolescents to take on adult social roles. We provide the first evidence to support this hypothesis in humans and show that pubertal development retunes the face-processing system from a caregiver bias to a peer bias. Prior to puberty, children exhibit enhanced recognition for adult female faces. With puberty, superior recognition emerges for peer faces that match one's pubertal status. As puberty progresses, so does the peer recognition bias. Adolescents become better at recognizing faces with a pubertal status similar to their own. These findings reconceptualize the adolescent "dip" in face recognition by showing that it is a recalibration of the face-processing system away from caregivers toward peers. Thus, in addition to preparing the physical body for sexual reproduction, puberty shapes the perceptual system for processing the social world in new ways.
青春期使哺乳动物在青春期准备进行性繁殖。它也被假设为引发一种社会变形，使青少年能够承担成人的社会角色。我们提供了第一个支持这一假设的人类证据，并表明青春期发育使面部处理系统从对照顾者的偏见转变为对同伴的偏见。在青春期之前，儿童对成年女性的面孔表现出增强的识别能力。随着青春期的到来，与自己的青春期状态相匹配的同伴面孔的识别能力变得更加优越。随着青春期的发展，同伴识别偏见也会增强。青少年变得更善于识别与自己的青春期状态相似的面孔。这些发现通过表明它是对面部处理系统从照顾者向同伴的重新校准，重新定义了青少年在面部识别方面的“低谷”。因此，除了为身体的性繁殖做准备外，青春期还以新的方式塑造了感知系统来处理社会世界。
