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Updated: Jun 22, 2026
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Creating Avian Forebrain Chimeras to Assess Facial Development
Published on: February 18, 2021
Asymmetry in face processing during childhood measured with chimeric faces
Abeer Aljuhanay1, Elizabeth Milne, D Michael Burt
1The University of Sheffield, UK.
Laterality
|June 24, 2009
Summary
Children aged 5 and older show a right hemisphere bias in face perception, similar to adults. This indicates that specialized face processing develops early in childhood, though efficiency may increase with age.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Adult studies reveal a left-visual-field bias in face perception, suggesting right-hemisphere specialization for facial information processing.
- Hemispheric asymmetry for face processing is present in infancy, but the developmental trajectory towards adult-like specialization in childhood remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the developmental timeline of children's face perception, specifically focusing on gender and emotion recognition.
- To determine at what age children's right-hemisphere bias in face processing becomes comparable to that observed in adults.
Main Methods:
- Utilized chimeric faces to assess perception of gender and emotion in children.
- Compared the observed hemispheric biases in children to established adult patterns.
Main Results:
- A right-hemisphere bias in face perception, mirroring adult patterns, was evident in children from 5 years of age.
- Children's basic face encoding mechanisms appear similar to adults, despite potential differences in processing efficiency.
Conclusions:
- The findings suggest that right-hemisphere specialization for face processing is established by age 5 in children.
- While children's face encoding is fundamentally similar to adults, processing efficiency may continue to develop beyond this age.
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