Lewis Jennifer, Roberson Debi, Foulsham Tom
Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2017 Jul 27;12(7):e0180499. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180499. eCollection 2017.
Research has demonstrated that how "cute" an infant is perceived to be has consequences for caregiving. Infants with facial abnormalities receive lower ratings of cuteness, but relatively little is known about how different abnormalities and their location affect these aesthetic judgements. The objective of the current study was to compare the impact of different abnormalities on the perception of infant faces, while controlling for infant identity. In two experiments, adult participants gave ratings of cuteness and attractiveness in response to face images that had been edited to introduce common facial abnormalities. Stimulus faces displayed either a haemangioma (a small, benign birth mark), strabismus (an abnormal alignment of the eyes) or a cleft lip (an abnormal opening in the upper lip). In Experiment 1, haemangioma had less of a detrimental effect on ratings than the more severe abnormalities. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the position of a haemangioma on the face. We found small but robust effects of this position, with abnormalities in the top and on the left of the face receiving lower cuteness ratings. This is consistent with previous research showing that people attend more to the top of the face (particularly the eyes) and to the left hemifield.
研究表明，婴儿被认为有多“可爱”会对其照料产生影响。面部有异常的婴儿得到的可爱评分较低，但对于不同的异常情况及其位置如何影响这些审美判断，人们了解得相对较少。本研究的目的是在控制婴儿身份的同时，比较不同异常情况对婴儿面部认知的影响。在两项实验中，成年参与者对经过编辑以呈现常见面部异常的面部图像给出可爱度和吸引力评分。刺激面孔展示的要么是血管瘤（一种小的良性胎记）、斜视（眼睛异常对齐），要么是唇裂（上唇的异常开口）。在实验1中，与更严重的异常情况相比，血管瘤对评分的不利影响较小。在实验2中，我们操纵了血管瘤在脸上的位置。我们发现这个位置有微小但显著的影响，面部顶部和左侧的异常得到的可爱度评分较低。这与之前的研究一致，该研究表明人们更多地关注面部顶部（尤其是眼睛）和左半视野。
