Thread by @bjbalas

Updated preprint from myself, @gnomicbrain and Dr. Sarah Weigelt! In this study we used a production task to measure children's estimates of typical face configuration in upright and inverted contexts. Short 🧵 about the main results... <1/n> psyarxiv.com/5btma/

We asked kids between the ages of 5-10 and adults to make "typical" faces by placing the eyes, nose and mouth inside either an upright or inverted face outline. <2/n>

This task allows us to measure many descriptors of face appearance including the absolute position of each feature (see below for averages) and specific spacing relationships. A surprising result: Inversion doesn't affect the systematic errors kids and adults make! <3/n>

So kids make big errors that get smaller as they get older. But the OTHER neat thing is that when you ask them to select a typical configuration using the age-specific average faces as foils, all groups have a strong preference for the true population average. <4/n>

So making a face seems to be different in interesting ways from recognizing a face. Drawing in general and drawings of faces in the specific may be windows into some aspects of visual processing, but imperfect ones. <5/n>

Recent work in @PerceptionSAGE from @larawooduk and colleagues at Abertay demonstrates some closely related results in kids in the same age range. Exciting to see converging evidence from different groups! <end> journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…