Infants' Differential Processing of Female and Male Faces

ABSTRACT— Infants show an interesting asymmetry in face processing: They are more fluent in processing female faces than they are at processing male faces. We hypothesize that such processing asymmetry results from greater experience with female faces than with male faces early in development. Asymmetrical face processing may have long-lasting implications for development of face recognition, development of knowledge structures regarding females and males, and social-information processing. We encourage researchers to use both female and male faces in their face-perception research and to conduct separate analyses for female and male faces.