An Eye-Tracking Research On Factors Influence Cartoon Face Processing

Cartoon is an art form loved by children, which is an important part of children’s daily life, playing an important role on social development of children’s cognition and emotion. We can have a better understand of face processing by explore the mechanism of cartoon face processing. This research adopted "study-recognition" paradigm to explore the effect of different factors on cartoon face processing, with the help of eye-tracking methodology. We chose 5-6 years old children and adults as participants, chose face type (cartoon human face and cartoon animal face, cartoon face and real face), paint mode (computer graphics, watercolor paint, and stick figure), participant’s age (adult and child) and participant’s gender as independent variables, chose behavioral data (reaction time and accuracy) and eye movement data (fixation duration and the number of saccades) as dependent variables.In this research, there are three experiments. The first experiment explored the differences between cartoon human face processing and cartoon animal face processing. The second experiment explored the effect of paint mode on cartoon face processing. The third experiment explored the differences between cartoon face processing and real face processing. The results are as followed:(1) Behavioral data shows that:children recalled cartoon human faces and cartoon animal faces with longer recation time than adults, the accuracy between children and adults has no difference; on recalling cartoon faces in all three paint modes, children’s reaction time was longer than adults, while there was no difference between their accuracy; participants recalled real faces with longer reaction time and lower accuracy than cartoon faces; on recalling real faces, although there was no difference on reaction time between children and adults, adults had a higher accuracy.(2) Eye movement shows that:participants processed cartoon human faces and cartoon animal faces in a same way, with more fixations on nose in both type of faces, but they processed cartoon human faces with longer fixation duration and more saccades; participants processed three different paint mode faces in different ways, with more fixations on noes in computer graphics faces and more fixations on eyes in watercolor paint faces and stick figure faces, and they processed computer graphics faces with longer fixation duration; participants processed cartoon faces and real faces in a same way, with more fixations on nose in both type of faces, but they processed real faces with longer fixation duration and more saccades; adults and children used different processing model in face processing, adults paid more attention on nose, using holistic processing, while children paid equal attention on nose, eyes and mouth, using featural processing; children were found using holistic processing to process watercolor painted cartoon face, but their ability of holistic processing were worse than those of adult; females and males used different processing models in face processing, female preferred featural processing, while male preferred holistic processing.In summary, the results show that:(1) participants process cartoon human faces and cartoon animal faces in a same way, but they process cartoon human faces with more efforts; (2) participants process three different paint mode faces in different ways, and they process computer graphics faces with more efforts; (3) participants process cartoon faces and real faces in a same way, but they process real faces with more efforts; (4) adults and children use different processing model in face processing, adults more likely use holistic processing, paying more attention on nose, while children more likely use featural processing, paying equal attention on nose, eyes and mouth; (5) children can use holistic processing to process face with few featural information, which is worse than those of adult; (6) females and males use different processing models in face processing, female may mainly uses featural processing, while male may mainly uses holistic processing.