George P A, Hole G J
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, UK.
Perception. 1995;24(9):1059-73. doi: 10.1068/p241059.
Factors affecting the accuracy with which adults could assess the age of unfamiliar male faces aged between 5 and 70 years were examined. In the first experiment twenty-five 'young' adult subjects, aged 16-25, and twenty-five 'old' adults, aged 51-60, were used. Each subject saw five versions of three different faces: these consisted of an original version of each face and four manipulated versions of it. The manipulations consisted of mirror reversal, pseudo-cardioidal strain, thresholding, and elimination of all but the internal features of the face. The second experiment was similar except that a between-subjects design was used: each subject saw three faces for each age category of target face, but was exposed to only a single type of manipulation (plus a set of 'original' faces which were identical for all groups, so that the comparability of the different groups in age estimation could be checked). Results from both experiments were similar. Age estimates for unmanipulated 'original' faces were highly accurate, although subjects were most accurate with target faces that were within their own age range. Results for the manipulated faces implied that the importance of cardioidal strain as a necessary and sufficient cue to age may have been overestimated in previous reports: subjects' age estimates were accurate when cardioidal strain was absent from the stimulus, and poor when cardioidal strain was the only cue available.
研究了影响成年人评估年龄在5至70岁之间陌生男性面孔年龄准确性的因素。在第一个实验中，使用了25名年龄在16至25岁之间的“年轻”成年人受试者和25名年龄在51至60岁之间的“年长”成年人受试者。每个受试者观看三张不同面孔的五个版本：这些版本包括每张面孔的原始版本及其四个经过处理的版本。处理方式包括镜像反转、拟心脏应变、阈值处理以及去除除面部内部特征之外的所有特征。第二个实验与之类似，只是采用了组间设计：每个受试者针对每个目标面孔年龄类别观看三张面孔，但只接触一种处理类型（外加一组对所有组都相同的“原始”面孔，以便检查不同组在年龄估计方面的可比性）。两个实验的结果相似。对于未处理的“原始”面孔，年龄估计非常准确，尽管受试者对处于自己年龄范围内的目标面孔最为准确。处理后面孔的结果表明，在先前的报告中，心脏应变作为年龄的必要且充分线索的重要性可能被高估了：当刺激中不存在心脏应变时，受试者的年龄估计准确，而当心脏应变是唯一可用线索时，年龄估计则很差。
