Is Face Age Mapped Asymmetrically onto Space? Insights from a SNARC-like Task

Abstract

The magnitude associated with a stimulus can be spatially connoted, with relatively smaller and larger magnitudes that would be represented on the left and on the right side of space, respectively. According to recent evidence, this space–magnitude association could reflect specific brain asymmetries. In this study, we explored whether such an association can also emerge for face age, assuming that responders should represent relatively younger and older adult faces on the left and on the right, respectively. A sample of young adults performed a speeded binary classification task aimed at categorising the age of a centrally placed adult face stimulus as either younger or older than the age of a reference face. A left-side and a right-side response key were used to collect manual responses. Overall, older faces were categorised faster than younger faces, and response latencies decreased with the absolute difference between the age of the target stimulus and the age of the reference, in line with a distance effect. However, no evidence of a left-to-right spatial representation of face age emerged. Taken together, these results suggest that face age is mapped onto space differently from other magnitudes.