Influence of Age-independent Facial Traits on Adult Judgments of Cuteness and Infantility of a Child's Face

Traits that are characteristic of children's faces make a face appear to be cute. Therefore, infantile facial features have been considered a trigger for care-giving behavior. However, few studies have investigated the effect of age-independent traits of a child's face on adult preferences for a child. In this study, ninety-six Japanese undergraduates and ninety-six preschool children provided the facial images used in this study. We divided children's facial variations into age-related and age-independent traits using methodologies of geometric morphometrics. The age-independent variations were summarized using a principal component analysis. The facial pictures corresponding to theoretical values from −3SD to +3SD along with both the age-related dimension and age-independent principal components were made by warping the average facial texture of the children's faces. A pairwise comparison method was used to investigate the relationship between cuteness/infantility and facial shape differences along with the age-related and age-independent components using the facial pictures. The results suggest that an evaluation of a child's cuteness depends on both age-independent and age-related facial features.