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- Title
Pubertal development shapes perception of complex facial expressions.
- Authors
Motta‐Mena, Natalie V.; Scherf, K. Suzanne
- Abstract
We previously hypothesized that pubertal development shapes the emergence of new components of face processing (Scherf et al., 2012; Garcia & Scherf, 2015). Here, we evaluate this hypothesis by investigating emerging perceptual sensitivity to complex versus basic facial expressions across pubertal development. We tested pre-pubescent children (6-8 years), age- and sex-matched adolescents in early and later stages of pubertal development (11-14 years), and sexually mature adults (18-24 years). Using a perceptual staircase procedure, participants made visual discriminations of both socially complex expressions (sexual interest, contempt) that are arguably relevant to emerging peer-oriented relationships of adolescence, and basic (happy, anger) expressions that are important even in early infancy. Only sensitivity to detect complex expressions improved as a function of pubertal development. The ability to perceive these expressions is adult-like by late puberty when adolescents become sexually mature. This pattern of results provides the first evidence that pubertal development specifically influences emerging affective components of face perception in adolescence.
- Subjects
PUBERTY; FACIAL expression; FRIENDSHIP; FACE perception; ROMANTIC friendship
- Publication
Developmental Science, 2017, Vol 20, Issue 4, pn/a
- ISSN
1363-755X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/desc.12451