Do all kids look alike? Evidence for an other-age effect in adults

The current study provides evidence for the existence of an Other-Age Effect (OAE), analogous to the well-documented Other-Race Effect. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that adults are better at recognizing adult faces compared to faces of newborns and children. Results from Experiment 3 indicate that the OAE obtained with child faces can be modulated by experience. Moreover, in each of the three experiments, differences in the magnitude of the observed face inversion effect for each age class of faces was taken to reflect a difference in the processing strategies used to recognize the faces of each age. Evidence from Experiment 3 indicates that these strategies can be tuned by experience. The data are discussed with reference to an experience-based framework for face recognition.