Culture shapes efficiency of facial age judgments

Cultural differences in socialization can lead to characteristic differences in how we perceive the world. Consistent with this influence of differential experience, our perception of faces (e.g., preference, recognition ability) is shaped by our previous experience with different groups of individu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2010-07, Vol.5 (7), p.e11679-e11679
Main Authors: Anzures, Gizelle, Ge, Liezhong, Wang, Zhe, Itakura, Shoji, Lee, Kang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Adult
Adults
Age
Aging
Asian Canadians
Asian Continental Ancestry Group
Canadians
Children
Chinese culture
Cultural differences
Culture
Face
Female
Humans
Information processing
Judgment
Judgments
Latency
Linguistics
Male
Males
Memory
Neuroscience/Experimental Psychology
Neuroscience/Psychology
Neuroscience/Sensory Systems
Older people
Pattern recognition
Perception
Social aspects
Social Perception
Social psychology
Speaking
Visual Perception - physiology
Young Adult
Young adults
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Summary:Cultural differences in socialization can lead to characteristic differences in how we perceive the world. Consistent with this influence of differential experience, our perception of faces (e.g., preference, recognition ability) is shaped by our previous experience with different groups of individuals. Here, we examined whether cultural differences in social practices influence our perception of faces. Japanese, Chinese, and Asian-Canadian young adults made relative age judgments (i.e., which of these two faces is older?) for East Asian faces. Cross-cultural differences in the emphasis on respect for older individuals was reflected in participants' latency in facial age judgments for middle-age adult faces--with the Japanese young adults performing the fastest, followed by the Chinese, then the Asian-Canadians. In addition, consistent with the differential behavioural and linguistic markers used in the Japanese culture when interacting with individuals younger than oneself, only the Japanese young adults showed an advantage in judging the relative age of children's faces. Our results show that different sociocultural practices shape our efficiency in processing facial age information. The impact of culture may potentially calibrate other aspects of face processing.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0011679