Petrakova Anastasia, Sommer Werner, Junge Martin, Hildebrandt Andrea
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany; Department of Psychology, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2018 Jul;188:148-176. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.06.005. Epub 2018 Jun 22.
Cognitive experimental and neuroscientific research in adults indicates that an important property of face perception is its specificity and reliance on configural processing. In addition, individual differences in face perception between adults cannot be entirely explained through general cognitive functioning and object cognition. Although recent years have witnessed growing interest in the development of face perception through childhood and adolescence, as yet, little is known about individual differences in configural face perception in this period of life, and whether these differences are face-specific. Here, we addressed these questions in a large sample (N = 338) drawn continuously from age six to 21. We applied a face composite task and a spatial manipulation task including stimulus inversion. Immediate and delayed face memory were assessed as covariates of configural face perception. Content specificity in configural face perception was tested by analogous tasks with houses as stimuli. In addition, we measured working memory and fluid intelligence. Our results show that there are large individual differences in configural face perception across the entire age range from six to 21 years. Supporting theories of early maturation, configural face perception was almost adult-like already at age six. Individual differences in configural face perception were related with immediate and delayed face memory and fluid intelligence across the whole age range. In sum, we provide novel evidence on large individual differences in configural face and object perception already in middle childhood, complementing findings from aging studies and providing new perspectives for further research.
针对成年人的认知实验和神经科学研究表明，面部感知的一个重要特性是其特异性以及对构型加工的依赖。此外，成年人在面部感知方面的个体差异不能完全通过一般认知功能和物体认知来解释。尽管近年来人们对儿童期和青少年期面部感知的发展越来越感兴趣，但对于这一生命阶段构型面部感知的个体差异，以及这些差异是否具有面部特异性，我们仍然知之甚少。在此，我们在一个从6岁到21岁连续抽取的大样本（N = 338）中探讨了这些问题。我们应用了面部合成任务和包括刺激反转在内的空间操作任务。即时和延迟面部记忆被评估为构型面部感知的协变量。通过以房屋为刺激的类似任务测试了构型面部感知中的内容特异性。此外，我们测量了工作记忆和流体智力。我们的结果表明，在6岁到21岁的整个年龄范围内，构型面部感知存在很大的个体差异。支持早期成熟理论的是，构型面部感知在6岁时就几乎与成年人相似。在整个年龄范围内，构型面部感知的个体差异与即时和延迟面部记忆以及流体智力有关。总之，我们提供了新的证据，证明童年中期在构型面部和物体感知方面就存在很大的个体差异，补充了衰老研究的结果，并为进一步研究提供了新的视角。
