<p>To assess how the plasticity of the face processing system changes with age, we trained 8-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults to differentiate 10 chimpanzee faces at the individual level for 3 days by having them watch a child-friendly training video. Their improvement from baseline was compared to that of age- and gender-matched controls who completed the pre- and post-tests, but did not complete training. Improvement did not vary across age: 8-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults all showed similar improvement in accuracy at discriminating the 10 chimpanzee faces on which they were trained. This improvement resulted in the reduction of the own-species bias after training. However, the benefits of training did not generalize to novel exemplars. In addition, participants from both the training and control groups showed a practice effect: their accuracy at discriminating both chimpanzee and human faces improved from pre- to post-test. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the face processing system is somewhat plastic between 8 years of age and adulthood and suggest that this plasticity remains stable throughout this period of development.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/12603 |
| Date | 10 1900 |
| Creators | Bracovic, Ana |
| Contributors | Maurer, Daphne, Trainor, Laurel, Rutherford, Mel, Psychology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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