CUTEBABY FACES SKIN

In the present study, we take a closer look at the general sensitivity of adults towards baby faces. They found no sex difference, suggesting that infant faces are biologically significant for men and women and are therefore prioritized by the attention system. Finally, this effect was specific for human stimuli puppies and kittens did not capture attention more than adult cats and dogs. Furthermore, they found this effect only for stimuli presented to the left visual field, suggesting an advantage for the right hemisphere. They found that photos of human infants capture attention more than photos of adult faces.

They used pictures of infant and adult humans, cats and dogs to test whether infant faces capture attention more than adult faces. For a review on sex differences in responses to infants see Berman (1980).īrosch, Sander, and Scherer (2007) examined whether the Kindchenschema captures attention. A further study (Alley, 1981) showed that a more infantile head shape increased cuteness when head size is held constant, but did not look at the performance of males and females separately. Additionally, they report that for women zygomaticus activity increased compared to men, but that cuteness did not modulate the activity of facial muscles.

CUTEBABY FACES SKIN

Hildebrandt and Fitzgerald (1978) investigated whether infant cuteness influenced looking behaviour, facial muscle activity and skin conductance, and found that cute babies were generally looked at longer. One study reported that preference for babyish head shapes was more pronounced in females than in males (Hückstedt, 1965), while other studies failed to find this difference (Gardner & Wallach, 1965). These studies found that exaggerated head sizes are perceived as cuter (Gardner and Wallach, 1965, Hückstedt, 1965). Even fewer empirical studies have investigated the physical properties of a cute baby face. Literature on perception of infant faces is scarce.

Baby faces showing these features are commonly described as cute or attractive (see also Sternglanz, Gray, & Murakami, 1977).

Lorenz (1943) proposed the concept of the Kindchenschema as an innate releasing mechanism for caretaking behaviour and affective orientation towards infants, triggered by features such as protruding cheeks, a large forehead and large eyes below the horizontal midline of the skull. These have been thought to function as a stimulus configuration which evokes positive emotions and caring behaviour towards the infant. The cuteness of an infant face is most likely determined by pedomorphic features.

Cutebaby faces