Preference for attractive faces in human infants extends beyond conspecifics

Human infants, just a few days of age, are known to prefer attractive human faces. We examined whether this preference is

human-specific. Three- to 4-month-olds preferred attractive over unattractive domestic and wild cat (tiger) faces (Experiments

1 and 3). The preference was not observed when the faces were inverted, suggesting that it did not arise from low-level image

differences (Experiments 2 and 3). In addition, the spontaneous preference for attractive tiger faces influenced performance in

a recognition memory task involving attractive versus unattractive tiger face pairings (Experiment 4). The findings suggest that infant

preference for attractive faces reflects the activity of general processing mechanisms rather than a specific adaptation to mate choice.