The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study

Faces are pivotal social stimuli that convey a tremendous amount of information and trigger numerous cogni-tive processes and consequent behaviors. Among the numerous factors that mediate face perception, we focused our attention on two particular phenomena and their interaction: the Baby Schema eff...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Navarini, Nora, Venturoso, Leonardo, Gabrieli, Giulio, Truzzi, Anna, Lim, Mengyu, Setoh, Peipei, Esposito, Gianluca
Other Authors: School of Social Sciences
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152221
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-152221
record_format dspace
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1522212023-03-05T15:31:12Z The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study Navarini, Nora Venturoso, Leonardo Gabrieli, Giulio Truzzi, Anna Lim, Mengyu Setoh, Peipei Esposito, Gianluca School of Social Sciences Division of Psychology Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab Social sciences::Psychology::Applied psychology Social sciences::Psychology Baby Schema Effect Mere Exposure Effect Pupillometry Faces, Attractiveness Ethnic Faces Faces are pivotal social stimuli that convey a tremendous amount of information and trigger numerous cogni-tive processes and consequent behaviors. Among the numerous factors that mediate face perception, we focused our attention on two particular phenomena and their interaction: the Baby Schema effect (BSE) and the Mere Exposure effect (MEE). Accordingly to the BSE, babies’ features are considered “cuter” than adults’ features and motivate people towards protection and caregiving, while the MEE states that familiarity can increase the like-ability of various stimuli, including faces. To investigate how those two factors interact, we carried out a follow-up study of the work of Venturoso et al. (2019) on a Singaporean sample. Singapore is a multicultural city-state where different ethnicities live alongside each other. Participants (ethnic Chinese and Indian) were shown faces of female adults and babies of different ethnic groups (Caucasian, Indian, Chinese and Arabic). Implicit responses were recorded using pupillometry measures, while explicit attitudes were assessed using a questionnaire. Our results confirm the presence of the BSE in both the explicit and implicit measures; specifically, baby faces elicited greater pupillary variations and were rated as more attractive than adult faces. An interaction effect between age and ethnicity was also observed. On the other hand, differences in pupil diameters and pleasantness scores were found between the ethnic groups on adult faces. The above-mentioned differences did not depend on whether stimuli belonged to the ethnic in-group or out-group of the participants, suggesting that exposure to individu-als of different ethnicities reduces in-group favoritism. Further investigation is needed to better understand the complex interaction between BSE and MEE in our increasingly multifaceted reality Ministry of Education (MOE) Nanyang Technological University Published version This research was supported by the NAP Start-up Grant M4081597 (G.E.) from Nanyang Technological University Singapore, the Singapore Ministry of Education ACR Tier-1 Grant (G.E., P.S.), Singapore Ministry of Education ACR Tier1 (G.E.), Singapore Ministry of Education Social Science Research Thematic Grant (MOE2016-SSRTG-017, P.S.). The founder agencies had no role in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. 2021-09-03T05:23:04Z 2021-09-03T05:23:04Z 2021 Journal Article Navarini, N., Venturoso, L., Gabrieli, G., Truzzi, A., Lim, M., Setoh, P. & Esposito, G. (2021). The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study. Experimental Psychology (Russia), 14(2), 124-140. https://dx.doi.org/10.17759/exppsy.2021140209 2072-7593 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152221 10.17759/exppsy.2021140209 2 14 124 140 en M4081597 MOE2016-SSRTG-017 Experimental Psychology (Russia) © 2021 The Author(s) (published by Moscow State University of Psychology and Education). This is an open-access article distributed under CC BY-NC 4.0 License. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Social sciences::Psychology::Applied psychology
Social sciences::Psychology
Baby Schema Effect
Mere Exposure Effect
Pupillometry
Faces, Attractiveness
Ethnic Faces
spellingShingle Social sciences::Psychology::Applied psychology
Social sciences::Psychology
Baby Schema Effect
Mere Exposure Effect
Pupillometry
Faces, Attractiveness
Ethnic Faces
Navarini, Nora
Venturoso, Leonardo
Gabrieli, Giulio
Truzzi, Anna
Lim, Mengyu
Setoh, Peipei
Esposito, Gianluca
The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study
description Faces are pivotal social stimuli that convey a tremendous amount of information and trigger numerous cogni-tive processes and consequent behaviors. Among the numerous factors that mediate face perception, we focused our attention on two particular phenomena and their interaction: the Baby Schema effect (BSE) and the Mere Exposure effect (MEE). Accordingly to the BSE, babies’ features are considered “cuter” than adults’ features and motivate people towards protection and caregiving, while the MEE states that familiarity can increase the like-ability of various stimuli, including faces. To investigate how those two factors interact, we carried out a follow-up study of the work of Venturoso et al. (2019) on a Singaporean sample. Singapore is a multicultural city-state where different ethnicities live alongside each other. Participants (ethnic Chinese and Indian) were shown faces of female adults and babies of different ethnic groups (Caucasian, Indian, Chinese and Arabic). Implicit responses were recorded using pupillometry measures, while explicit attitudes were assessed using a questionnaire. Our results confirm the presence of the BSE in both the explicit and implicit measures; specifically, baby faces elicited greater pupillary variations and were rated as more attractive than adult faces. An interaction effect between age and ethnicity was also observed. On the other hand, differences in pupil diameters and pleasantness scores were found between the ethnic groups on adult faces. The above-mentioned differences did not depend on whether stimuli belonged to the ethnic in-group or out-group of the participants, suggesting that exposure to individu-als of different ethnicities reduces in-group favoritism. Further investigation is needed to better understand the complex interaction between BSE and MEE in our increasingly multifaceted reality
author2 School of Social Sciences
author_facet School of Social Sciences
Navarini, Nora
Venturoso, Leonardo
Gabrieli, Giulio
Truzzi, Anna
Lim, Mengyu
Setoh, Peipei
Esposito, Gianluca
format Article
author Navarini, Nora
Venturoso, Leonardo
Gabrieli, Giulio
Truzzi, Anna
Lim, Mengyu
Setoh, Peipei
Esposito, Gianluca
author_sort Navarini, Nora
title The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study
title_short The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study
title_full The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study
title_fullStr The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study
title_full_unstemmed The influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study
title_sort influence of baby schema effect and mere exposure effect on implicit and explicit face processing : a follow-up study
publishDate 2021
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152221
_version_ 1759853433523798016