Here's Looking At You: Quantification Of Quotidian Exposure To Faces

The majority of adults are face experts, excelling at perceiving, recognizing, and discriminating amongst faces. This expertise begins to develop in infancy, but it is currently unclear whether it develops primarily based on extensive experience or on a genetic predisposition. The amount of face experience typically received in infancy and adulthood has not been quantified previously. Through the use of head-mounted cameras, this study describes the exposure to faces received by 1-and 3-month-old infants and adults in their natural environment. Adults see faces significantly less often (13% of the time) than 1-and 3-month-oldinfants(37% and 38%, respectively). Infants see more female, homogenous-age, own-race, inverted, and emotional faces than adults. They also view more up-close faces than adults, which reflects the different interactions infants and adults have with faces. These results are discussed in terms of the relations between face exposure and the development of expertise.