title: A developmental study of the own-age face recognition bias in children.
abstract: The own-age bias is one in which people recognize faces of people their own age more accurately than faces of other ages (e.g., Anastasi & Rhodes, 2005, 2006) and appears to be, at least, partially based on experience (Harrison & Hole, 2009). Indeed, Hills and Lewis (2011a) have shown that 8-year-old faces are more accurately recognized by 8-year-old children than by 6- or 11-year-old children, suggesting the own-age bias develops rapidly. The present study explores the own-age bias in a developmental study in participants aged 6-10 years. Ninety participants (divided into 3 groups of 30 on the basis of their age at the first time of testing) undertook a standard old/new recognition paradigm in which their recognition accuracy was measured for 8- and 20-year-old faces. Results showed that when the participants were 8 years old, they recognized 8-year-old faces more accurately than when they were 7 or 9 years old. This effect was found to be based on mechanisms that differ from simple developmental improvement. This is the first study to show the development of the own-age bias in face recognition using a longitudinal design. These results show that the face recognition system is updated on the basis of recent experience and/or motivation to process faces, creating recognition biases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, England. Peter.hills@anglia.ac.uk
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Hills
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015982:Bias; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult