Influence of Age-independent Facial Traits on Adult Judgments of Cuteness and Infantility of a Child's Face

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• 作者：Masashi Komori ; Hiroshi Nittono
• 关键词：Cuteness ; Baby Schema ; Geometric Morphometrics.
• 刊名：Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences
• 出版年：6 November, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：97
• 期：Complete
• 页码：285-291
• 全文大小：830 K

文摘

Traits that are characteristic of children's faces make a face appear to be cute. Therefore, infantile facial features have been considered a trigger for care-giving behavior. However, few studies have investigated the effect of age-independent traits of a child's face on adult preferences for a child. In this study, ninety-six Japanese undergraduates and ninety-six preschool children provided the facial images used in this study. We divided children's facial variations into age-related and age-independent traits using methodologies of geometric morphometrics. The age-independent variations were summarized using a principal component analysis. The facial pictures corresponding to theoretical values from 鈭?SD to +3SD along with both the age-related dimension and age-independent principal components were made by warping the average facial texture of the children's faces. A pairwise comparison method was used to investigate the relationship between cuteness/infantility and facial shape differences along with the age-related and age-independent components using the facial pictures. The results suggest that an evaluation of a child's cuteness depends on both age-independent and age-related facial features.