title: Sweet puppies and cute babies: perceptual adaptation to babyfacedness transfers across species.
abstract: Infant faces are very salient stimuli. The Kindchenschema describes specific features that characterize a cute infant face. In this study we used a visual adaptation paradigm to investigate the universality of the perceptual properties of the Kindchenschema. In Experiment 1, twenty-four participants adapted to cute and less cute human infant faces and in Experiment 2, twenty-four new participants adapted to cute and less cute faces of puppy dogs. In both experiments the task was to assess the cuteness of subsequently presented human infant faces. The results revealed cuteness after-effects for human infant faces in both adaptation conditions, suggesting a common mechanism coding cuteness in human and non-human faces. This study provides experimental evidence for the universality of the well-described concept of the Kindchenschema.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland ; Center for Cognition, Learning, and Memory, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jessika
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Golle
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lisibach
authors.forename: Fred W
authors.initials: FW
authors.lastname: Mast
authors.forename: Janek S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Lobmaier
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D004285:Dogs; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult