Sex differences in visual attention toward infant faces

Cárdenas, Rodrigo A.; Harris, Lauren Julius; Becker, Mark W.

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.04.001

Cited by 72 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…In 95% of mammals, females are essentially responsible for rearing the offspring [57]. Cárdenas and colleagues [42] found that women took longer time and looked more often at unknown infant faces, than at unknown adults. The authors explained this as an adaptation of human cognition to infant care as a result of alloparental care in humans.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alloparental investment is common in humans, because human infants are very costly to raise. The assistance of alloparents could thus act as a benefit for reproductive success [42]. In this case, the stimulus baby schema should not only lead to a positive emotional reaction, but may also provoke prioritized attention as stimuli with high biological relevance are assumed to be processed preferably by the attentional system [43].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cárdenas and colleagues [42] for example, were able to show that even young nulliparous women looked longer at infant faces and fixated the infant faces more often than female or male adult faces, whereas men were only interested in infant faces when these were presented with a male adult face and not with a female adult face. Nevertheless, the research field of the role of reproductive hormones, such as progesterone [45], estradiol [46] and testosterone [23] in parental behavior is still relatively young (for review see: [27] and [47]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Endogenous Testosterone and Exogenous Oxytocin Modulate Attentional Processing of Infant Faces

Holtfrerich¹,

Schwarz

Sprenger

et al. 2016

PLoS ONE

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Evidence indicates that hormones modulate the intensity of maternal care. Oxytocin is known for its positive influence on maternal behavior and its important role for childbirth. In contrast, testosterone promotes egocentric choices and reduces empathy. Further, testosterone decreases during parenthood which could be an adaptation to increased parental investment. The present study investigated the interaction between testosterone and oxytocin in attentional control and their influence on attention to baby schema in women. Higher endogenous testosterone was expected to decrease selective attention to child portraits in a face-in-the-crowd-paradigm, while oxytocin was expected to counteract this effect. As predicted, women with higher salivary testosterone were slower in orienting attention to infant targets in the context of adult distractors. Interestingly, reaction times to infant and adult stimuli decreased after oxytocin administration, but only in women with high endogenous testosterone. These results suggest that oxytocin may counteract the adverse effects of testosterone on a central aspect of social behavior and maternal caretaking.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Endogenous Testosterone and Exogenous Oxytocin Modulate Attentional Processing of Infant Faces

Holtfrerich¹,

Schwarz

Sprenger

et al. 2016

PLoS ONE

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“…This has led to the assumption that women might be better tuned than men to reading emotional expressions in infants (Babchuk et al, 1985; Cárdenas et al, 2013; Hahn et al, 2013). However, while behavioral studies sometimes find gender differences (Cárdenas et al, 2013; Hahn et al, 2013), others do not (Brosch et al, 2007; Parsons et al, 2011; Borgi et al, 2014).…”

Section: Study 2: Infant Emotion Recognition By Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

The Tromso Infant Faces Database (TIF): Development, Validation and Application to Assess Parenting Experience on Clarity and Intensity Ratings

et al. 2017

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Newborns and infants are highly depending on successfully communicating their needs; e.g., through crying and facial expressions. Although there is a growing interest in the mechanisms of and possible influences on the recognition of facial expressions in infants, heretofore there exists no validated database of emotional infant faces. In the present article we introduce a standardized and freely available face database containing Caucasian infant face images from 18 infants 4 to 12 months old. The development and validation of the Tromsø Infant Faces (TIF) database is presented in Study 1. Over 700 adults categorized the photographs by seven emotion categories (happy, sad, disgusted, angry, afraid, surprised, neutral) and rated intensity, clarity and their valance. In order to examine the relevance of TIF, we then present its first application in Study 2, investigating differences in emotion recognition across different stages of parenthood. We found a small gender effect in terms of women giving higher intensity and clarity ratings than men. Moreover, parents of young children rated the images as clearer than all the other groups, and parents rated “neutral” expressions as more clearly and more intense. Our results suggest that caretaking experience provides an implicit advantage in the processing of emotional expressions in infant faces, especially for the more difficult, ambiguous expressions.

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“…This has been shown when infant faces were provided as viewing options along with same-sex and opposite-sex adult faces ; but see Parsons, Young, Kumari, Stein, & Kringelbach, 2011) as well as when animal faces were used as additional viewing options (Charles, Alexander, & Saenz, 2013). Similarly, infant faces have been shown to capture women's attention to a greater extent that same-sex or opposite-sex faces, whereas infant faces capture men's attention more so than same-sex faces, but much less than opposite-sex faces (Cárdenas, Harris, & Becker, 2013; but see Brosch et al, 2007).…”

Section: Sexually Dimorphic Responses To Infantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural and behavioral responses to attractiveness in adult and infant faces

Hahn

Perrett

2014

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

137

106

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Facial attractiveness provides a very powerful motivation for sexual and parental behavior. We therefore review the importance of faces to the study of neurobiological control of human reproductive motivations. For heterosexual individuals there is a common brain circuit involving the nucleus accumbens, the medial prefrontal, dorsal anterior cingulate and the orbitofrontal cortices that is activated more by attractive than unattractive faces, particularly for faces of the opposite sex. Behavioral studies indicate parallel effects of attractiveness on incentive salience or willingness to work to see faces. Both work/effort and brain activation to the sight of opposite sex attractiveness is more pronounced in men than women, perhaps reflecting the greater importance assigned to physical attractiveness by men when evaluating a potential mate. Studies comparing heterosexual and homosexual observers indicate the orbitofrontal cortex and mediodorsal thalamus are more activated by faces of the desired sex than faces of the less preferred sex, independent of observer gender or sexual orientation. Infant faces activate brain regions that partially overlap with those responsive to adult faces. Infant faces provide a powerful stimulus, which also elicits sex differences in behavior and brain responses that appear dependent on sex hormones. There are many facial dimensions affecting perceptions of attractiveness that remain unexplored in neuroimaging, and we conclude by suggesting that future studies combining parametric manipulation of face images, brain imaging, hormone assays and genetic polymorphisms in receptor sensitivity are needed to understand the neural and hormonal mechanisms underlying reproductive drives.3

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Sex differences in visual attention toward infant faces

Cited by 72 publications

References 49 publications

Endogenous Testosterone and Exogenous Oxytocin Modulate Attentional Processing of Infant Faces

Endogenous Testosterone and Exogenous Oxytocin Modulate Attentional Processing of Infant Faces

The Tromso Infant Faces Database (TIF): Development, Validation and Application to Assess Parenting Experience on Clarity and Intensity Ratings

Neural and behavioral responses to attractiveness in adult and infant faces

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