Abstract:

The effect of the babyface schema is an innate instinct that promotes the formation of early parent-child relationships; this has been thought to be primarily influenced by the baby's face structure. However, in recent years, the influence of facial expression on this effect has begun to attract attention. With the adult face as the baseline, the size of the babyface schema’s effect will change with different facial expressions, and the effect of a neutral babyface schema becomes the strongest. Because the cause of this phenomenon and its neurological mechanism are still unclear, this project first plans to establish a set of standardized facial pictures of an infant and adult displaying various affective faces. Then, based on this, the researchers will investigate whether facial expression uncertainty can moderate adults’ preferences and attention biases for infants with different facial expressions, and they will furthermore explore the corresponding neurological mechanism to promote research on the parental brain in China.

Key words: babyface schema, facial expression, facial expression uncertainty, parent-child relationship, parental brain