London. Until today, the tendency to recognise faces of the race one is most familiar with known as the ORE effect (Other-race effect) was considered valid regardless of the age of the individual. A study shows that, instead, this phenomenon does not happen when we are faced with infants, therefore our emotional response is always a desire to protect them. The reason lies in their pedomorfic characteristics i.e a large head in relation to the body, eyes, chubby cheeks, dainty and small nose. This is experimentally demonstrated in “The other-race effect does not apply to infant faces: An ERP attentional study” published in Neuropsychologia authored by Alice Mado Proverbio and Valeria De Gabriele, from the Pyschology Department of the University of Milano-Bicocca. (9Colonne)
