This document discusses the development of face processing from childhood to adulthood. It reviews several studies that show that children progress from featural face processing to configural face processing as they age. While some studies found that configural processing develops fully around age 10, other research has shown that children as young as 4 can engage in some level of configural processing, though not as proficiently as older children and adults. The ability to recognize faces in an upright versus inverted orientation also improves with age as configural processing skills increase through childhood and adolescence.

1. Running Head: DEVELOPMENT OF FACE PROCESSING 1
Evaluate how Face Processing Changes from Childhood to Adulthood
Student Number: 27902161
University of Southampton
Word Count: 1498

2. DEVELOPMENT OF FACE PROCESSING 2
Evaluate how Face Processing Changes from Childhood to Adulthood
Face processing has different stages of development in children and adults. Featural face
processing is considered as the first stage of face processing. This focuses on the elements of a
face as a whole. The second stage of face processing is configural processing, which is more
specific. This process focuses on the distance and relationship of face components, such as how
far the eyes and nose are apart (Young, Hwan & Soo, 2011). Some studies agree that
configurational processing takes at least 10 years to develop such as Yin, (1969) and Carey &
Diamond, (1977). But Flin (1985) discards this idea suggesting that the experiment is
inconclusive, that paraphernalia is not solely responsible for younger children (<10 years old)
being able to recognise unfamiliar faces (Flin, 1985). Another contradiction is that
configurational processing can develop a great deal younger than 10 years old (Freire & Lee,
2001).
Due to evidence shown in Carey and Diamond (1977) and Yin (1969)’s studies, there is
reason to believe that by adulthood, people are experts at recognising faces. Yin (1969),
produced an experiment wanting to show that face recognition was different to how we process
other objects; such as a house or an aeroplane. He found that the adults can recognise faces in
their upright position, a great deal easier than the objects. But when the faces were inverted,
participants found them the hardest to recognise compared to the objects. This shows that face
recognition is special, it is different to how we process other stimuli. This is because the
inversion effect is largest for faces due to adults being very good with upright faces (Yin, 1969).
But Yin (1969) did not express how face processing develops and only showed that face
processing is simply unique with adults.
Following on from Yin’s (1969) study, Carey and Diamond (1977), carried out
experiments to show how adults are experts at face processing. They used featural and

3. DEVELOPMENT OF FACE PROCESSING 3
configurational processing to show how this happens. They carried out two experiments; firstly
they collected thirty six children aged 6, 8 and 10 years old. Each age group had two sets of
twenty four photographs shown to them of faces and houses. One set was upright, the other
inverted. Both sets were equally distributed across the groups. Participants were then tested to
see what pairs were recognisable. From this Carey and Diamond (1977) compared the ages of
participants to see whether there was a difference between the inversion effect and the upright
positions of the photographs. They found that the ages 6 – 8 yrs old that there was little
difference between the two conditions, with regards to correct answers, (-8% to 4%). But with
the 10 year old participants, this difference was a great deal higher at 25%. The results support
the Yin (1969) study of the inversion effect. The effect changes with experience as people
become better at recognising upright faces. In the second experiment of Carey and Diamond
(1977), the participants were shown twelve sets of faces with four different problem types;
manipulation of facial expression, or a change in paraphernalia, (clothing, hairstyle or glasses).
The participants were shown a picture of a normal face, then shown another two pictures, (one of
the pictures being the same as the previous picture but manipulated, and the other of a new face).
They were then asked which one of the two pictures was the same as the previous picture. Carey
and Diamond (1977) hypothesised that the children aged 6 to 8 years old were more likely to
make mistakes due to their reliance on paraphernalia to recognise unfamiliar faces. The results
show that the 6-8 year olds were significantly worse at the task than the 10 year olds due to the
lack of configurational processing. The 6 to 8 year olds showed 70% of incorrect answers
compared to 30% to the 10 year olds. This concludes that up to 8 years old, featural processing is
the process used for recognising unfamiliar faces. A reason for the long period of development
for configural face processing could be that the older the child, the more exposure they would
have to unfamiliar faces compared to 6 to 8 year olds. For example due to social aspects,

4. DEVELOPMENT OF FACE PROCESSING 4
teachers, or social clubs, which gives them more experience to encode new faces, therefore use
more configurational processing to identify new people (Carey & Diamond, 1977).
In contrast to Carey and Diamond (1977), further research by Flin (1985) has been
conducted to show that Carey and Diamond’s (1977) findings are inconclusive. Due to the
insufficient evidence to state an encoding switch, (the use of configural processing instead of
featural processing), at the age of 10 years old. Flin (1985) stated that due to the variables being
manipulated in the study, the results were affected. Therefore done an experiment to cancel out
these variables to confirm this theory. The experiment tested 271 children aged from 7 to 16
years old, at a school. They were grouped into twelve classes of an average of 22 pupils in a
classroom, equally female and males, in the different ages. Each group were shown black and
white slides of ten boys’ faces, unfamiliar to them, to memorise for eight seconds each. They
were then shown a slide of the same ten faces previously shown, but with an additional ten new
faces. They had to then try and correctly guess the first ten faces, out of the twenty faces shown,
on the response sheets provided. This was to test for upright face recognition. The second test
was the same procedure but with the second set of twenty slides, the faces were inverted. This
was to test for the effect of inversion compared to upright faces. The results confirmed Carey and
Diamond’s (1977) study of the upright face recognition that the youngest pupils (age 7) were not
as good at this task compared to the older children (age 16). But the results of the inversion tests
states hardly no difference in the ages of 7-13 year olds. Ages from 14-16 years old scored
higher on the inverted pictures, than the younger ages. Suggesting that if the task is changed to a
more sensitive approach, there would be a difference in results. This contradicts Yin (1969) and
Carey and Diamond’s (1977) conclusion that the inversion effect gets worse as configurational
processing gets better (Flin, 1985).

5. DEVELOPMENT OF FACE PROCESSING 5
In addition, Freire and Lee (2001) also found that configurational processing does not
need years to develop. Contradicting both Yin (1969) and Carey and Diamond (1977) that
featural (piecemeal) face processing switches to configural processing at 10 years old. Freire and
Lee (2001) carried out an experiment to show that configural processing does not need a large
period of time to develop to a high level. In the experiment they used ninety four, 4 to 11 year
olds, (previously, youngest aged tested was 6 years old), to assess their ability to recognise
unfamiliar faces using configural face processing. Each participant was shown individually, with
an experimenter, a folder containing a story about the experimenter’s friend Bob (A target
photograph with a made up story, to engage the young children, and to introduce an unfamiliar
face). They were also told that Bob had three brothers, (These were the same faces but their
features were manipulated to show a similarity but not a copy of Bob). The experimenter showed
the participant a picture of Bob for the period of five seconds, stating that they had to try and
remember the face to recognise later. They were then shown a picture of all three brothers and
Bob on the next page. They were asked who they thought looked the most similar to Bob. There
were 24 trials done on each participant, which also included Bob and the three brothers with
paraphernalia additions. The results showed that 4 to 5 year olds, although the results worse in
respect to 6 year olds, were able to correctly identify Bob at an average of 56% of the time.
Suggesting that at the age of 4 years old, configural processing is used to recognise an unfamiliar
face and does not take as long to develop as previously stated. This also suggests that younger
children find featural processing easier than configural processing, unless approached more
sensitively (folder and one to one interaction). Therefore use featural processing as the first step
to recognise unfamiliar faces, but are capable of configural processing when intimately shown
(Freire & Lee, 2001).

6. DEVELOPMENT OF FACE PROCESSING 6
To conclude, the experiments have shown that as we grow our development of
configurational processing does increase in ability. But usually is seen at the ages of 10 years old
(Yin, 1969), (Carey and Diamond, 1977). This process can be specialised to show that children
younger than 10 years old are also capable of configurational processing, when tested in a more
intimate level, but use mostly featural processing to recognise an unfamiliar face, in a usual
setting compared to adults who use mostly configural processing (Freire & Lee, 2001).

7. DEVELOPMENT OF FACE PROCESSING 7
References
Carey, S., & Diamond, R. (1977). From piecemeal to configurational representation of faces.
Science, 195, 312–314. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.831281
Flin, R. H. (1985). Development of face recognition: An encoding switch? British Journal of
Psychology, 76, 123–134. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1985.tb01936.x
Freire, A., & Lee, K. (2001). Face recognition in 4- to 7-Year-Olds: Processing of Configural,
Featural, and paraphernalia information. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 80, 347–
371. http://doi.org/10.1006/jecp.2001.2639
Yin, R. K. (1969). Looking at upside down faces. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 81(141-
145).
Young, N., Hwan, J., & Soo, J. (2011). Face recognition in human: The roles of Featural and
Configurational processing. Face Analysis, Modeling and Recognition Systems.
http://doi.org/10.5772/21514