Face Ages and Crowds: How Age Impacts Our Perception of Faces

Ever wondered how our brains quickly pick out the average face from a crowd? It turns out, age plays a big role in this trick our minds can do. Scientists discovered that when we see a group of faces, we can easily figure out the average face. But do different ages change how well we do this? Researchers ran two experiments to find out. In both experiments, adults looked at groups of four faces that were either similar or different in age and then guessed if a new face was in the group or not. The "different age" faces were either older or baby faces. What they found was interesting: when the other faces were older, adults were better at spotting the average face of their own age group. But when the other faces were babies, adults were more likely to mistake the average baby face for one of the faces in the group. This is what scientists call the "babyface effect. " So, the age of the faces in a crowd can mess with our ability to pick out the average face. Isn't that cool?