Have you got the look? Gaze direction affects judgements of facial attractiveness

Much is known about the attractiveness of physical attributes, such as symmetry and averageness. Here we examine the effect of a social cue, eye-gaze direction, on facial attractiveness. Given that direct gaze signals social engagement, we predicted that faces showing direct gaze would be preferred to faces showing averted gaze. Thirty-two males completed two tasks designed to assess preferences for female faces displaying a neutral expression. Participants were more likely to select the face with direct gaze, when choosing the more attractive face from direct- and averted-gaze versions of the same face. This direct-gaze preference was stronger for high-attractive than low-attractive face sets, but was present for both. Attractiveness ratings were also higher for faces with direct than averted gaze. Interestingly, stimulus inversion weakened the preference for inverted faces, which suggests the preference does not simply reflect a bilateral symmetry bias.     

John Dewey and the Buddhist Philosophy of the Middle Way1

This paper argues that the central philosophical movement in the complex history of Buddhism that originated with Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha and carried on by Nāgārjuna (among other later Buddhist philosophers) shares some common themes with the pragmatic philosophy of John Dewey. These themes are the rejection of traditional metaphysics as definitive of philosophy, a return to the correct understanding of the nature of experience, and a particular view about the conduct and nature of philosophy. Dewey is used to illuminate such controversial problems in the Buddhist tradition as why the Buddha is silent about metaphysical questions, what it means to say that everything is anitya, and how we are to understand Nāgārjuna's key concepts of pratītyasamutpāda and ?únyatá.     

Adopted Individuals’ Views on the Utility and Value of Expanded Carrier Screening

Adoptees may not have family medical history and ethnicity information. Carrier screening assesses reproductive risk. Expanded carrier screening (ECS) screens for many genetic conditions regardless of a patient’s knowledge of family history and ethnicity. This study aimed to better understand the opinions and attitudes of adopted individuals on the use of ECS in determining a patient’s reproductive genetic risks. Specifically, the study assessed how adopted individuals feel that results of ECS may be useful to them and whether adoptees feel that meeting with a genetics professional in the process of undergoing ECS would be useful. Adult adoptees (N?=?124) were recruited online. Their opinions on ECS were explored. The majority reported they had never been offered carrier screening (92%). The majority of adoptees wanted ECS (76%). Neither the amount of contact with biological relatives nor having medical knowledge about biological relatives was significantly associated with adoptees’ desire to pursue ECS. There was a significant positive correlation between adoptees of higher education levels and the amount they would pay for ECS (p?=?0.004). The majority of participants (95%) indicated a genetics professional would be helpful when undergoing ECS. The findings suggest this population may want ECS and support from genetics healthcare professionals. Advocacy for genetic counseling and testing for adoptees appears justifiable.     

Specialised higher-level mechanisms for facial-symmetry perception: evidence from orientation-tuning functions

Bilateral symmetry is important in many perceptual analyses from low-level figure-ground segmentation to higher-level face and object perception. Despite the success of low-level, image-based symmetry-detection models, these may not provide a complete account of symmetry perception. Better symmetry detection and stronger preferences for symmetry in upright faces than comparable patterns (e.g. inverted faces) that do not engage specialised face-coding mechanisms suggest a contribution of higher-level mechanisms to symmetry perception. We replicated better symmetry detection and stronger symmetry preferences for upright than inverted faces in experiment 1, and examined their orientation tuning in more detail in experiment 2. Decreasing performance as faces are mis-oriented away from the canonical upright orientation is the signature of specialised face-processing mechanisms, which are engaged less effectively as faces are mis-oriented. Lower-level symmetry-detection mechanisms, which operate better with vertical than horizontal, and horizontal than oblique, axes of symmetry would produce a W-shaped orientation-tuning function. Identical orientation-tuning functions were obtained for symmetry detection and preferences. Both declined with increasing mis-orientation over the 0 degrees-135 degrees range, consistent with a contribution from specialised face-coding mechanisms. Both increased from 135 degrees to 180 degrees, consistent with reliance on lower-level image-based mechanisms for severely misoriented faces. Taken together, the results implicate specialised, higher-level mechanisms in the detection of, and preference for, facial symmetry.     

Parental Perceptions of Characteristics of Non-Parental Child Care: Belief Dimensions, Family and Child Correlates

Investigators argue that it is essential to consider why parents select non-parental child care arrangements in studying the effects of that care on a child’s development. Existing investigations explore family economic and demographic characteristics as determinants of child care choice. The present investigation examined a wide array of parents’ beliefs about characteristics of child care arrangements with the goal of determining if these could be reduced to coherent dimensions. The emergent belief sets were examined in relation to maternal and child characteristics as potential correlates. Two hundred and twenty respondents with children in non-parental care completed surveys. These individuals represent diverse ethnic and economic groups. Ratings of the importance of characteristics were factor analyzed resulting in a six factor solution: Practical Concerns, Institutional Structure, Curriculum, Scheduling, Child Centered Orientation and School Readiness. The latter factor, or program components promoting social skills and classroom behaviors associated with succeeding in school, was identified as the most important dimension. Parents describing their children as more difficult temperamentally and as less developmentally advanced tended to describe school readiness and curriculum issues as less important. Child characteristics accounted for unique variance above and beyond mothers’ characteristics in predicting to parental beliefs. Results suggest that parents as consumers possess coherent belief sets and are sensitive to children’s developmental needs in evaluating care arrangements.     

Atypical updating of face representations with experience in children with autism

Face identity aftereffects are significantly diminished in children with autism relative to typical children, which may reflect reduced perceptual updating with experience. Here, we investigated whether this atypicality also extends to non‐face stimulus categories, which might signal a pervasive visual processing difference in individuals with autism. We used a figural aftereffect task to measure directly perceptual updating following exposure to distorted upright faces, inverted faces and cars, in typical children and children with autism. A size‐change between study and test stimuli limited the likelihood that any processing atypicalities reflected group differences in adaptation to low‐level features of the stimuli. Results indicated that, relative to typical children, figural aftereffects for upright faces, but not inverted faces or cars, were significantly attenuated in children with autism. Moreover, the group difference was amplified when we isolated the ‘face‐selective’ component of the aftereffect, by partialling out the mid‐level shape adaptation common to upright and inverted face stimuli. Notably, the aftereffects of typical children were disproportionately larger for upright faces than for inverted faces and cars, but the magnitude of aftereffects of autistic children was not similarly modulated according to stimulus category. These findings are inconsistent with a pervasive adaptive coding atypicality relative to typical children, and suggest that reduced perceptual updating may constitute a high‐level, and possibly face‐selective, visual processing difference in children with autism.     

Response inhibition in children with and without ADHD after traumatic brain injury

Children with attention‐deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) show deficient response inhibition. ADHD itself is a common consequence of TBI, known as secondary ADHD (S‐ADHD). Similarity in inhibitory control in children with TBI, S‐ADHD, and ADHD would implicate impaired frontal‐striatal systems; however, it is first necessary to delineate similarities and differences in inhibitory control in these conditions. We compared performance of children with ADHD and those with TBI without pre‐injury ADHD on a stop signal, response inhibition task. Participants were 274 children aged 6–14 years. There were 92 children with ADHD, 103 children with TBI, and 79 typically developing children who served as controls. Among the TBI participants, injury severity ranged from mild to severe. Children with ADHD and TBI showed deficient inhibition. The deficit in children with ADHD was as great as or greater than that in children with TBI, regardless of degree of TBI severity or the presence of S‐ADHD. The finding indicates that TBI results in deficient inhibition regardless of the development of S‐ADHD.     

Perceived trustworthiness of faces drives trust behaviour in children

Facial appearances can powerfully influence adults' trust behaviour, despite limited evidence that these cues constitute honest signals of trustworthiness. It is not clear, however, whether the same is also true for children. The current study investigated whether, like adults, 5‐year‐olds and 10‐year‐olds are more likely to place their trust in partners that look trustworthy than those that look untrustworthy. A second, closely related question was whether children also explicitly value the information from face cues when making trust decisions. We investigated these questions using Token Quest: an economic trust game that gave participants the opportunity to make investments with a series of partners who might (or might not) repay their trust with large returns. These interactions occurred under different conditions, including one in which participants were shown the face of each partner and another in which they could ‘purchase’ access to faces with a portion of their investment capital. Results indicated that, like adults, 10‐year‐old children selectively placed their trust in those partners they perceived as looking trustworthy and many were willing to ‘pay’ to purchase access to these face cues during the trust game. We observed a similar profile of trust behaviour in 5‐year‐olds, with no significant group difference in the impact of face cues on behaviour across the three age groups. Together, these findings indicate that the influence of face cues on trust behaviour emerges early, and highlight a capacity for sophisticated social cognition in young children.