How experience influences infants’ recognition of male and female faces

Young infants with female primary caregivers are able to differentiate familiar female faces from novel female faces but not male faces. Experience processing faces may be important for being able to discriminate among similar-looking faces. Subsequently, increasing infants’ experience with less familiar faces should improve their ability to differentiate those types of faces. This study examined if infants’ experience with faces affected their recognition of new faces. Prior to testing, 2-3 month old infants were assigned to one of three conditions: a male video, a female video, and no video condition. Infants were familiarized to both male and female faces during test. For the male faces, infants who saw the male video showed a familiarity preference, infants who saw the female video showed a novelty preference, and infants who saw no video showed no preference. For female faces, infants showed no preference when assigned to the male video and no video condition, while infants assigned to the female video (n = 5) showed a familiarity preference. A follow up infant-controlled habituation study tested if infants processed faces featurally or holistically. During testing, infants saw one familiar face, one composite face, and one novel face. None of the infants in the male video, female video, or no video conditions were able to distinguish the familiar face from the composite face. Only infants in the female video condition showed an increase in looking time from the familiar face to the novel face

The Impact of Forgiveness on PTSD Symptoms in Salvadoran Teachers Exposed to Community Violence

There is a well-established relationship between community violence (CV) exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity. Few researchers, however, have examined the relationship between forgiveness and these variables both in the US and in Central America. As El Salvador ranks as one of the most violent countries in Central America, educators in this country may be particularly vulnerable to increasing levels of exposure to community violence and be at a higher risk to develop PTSD symptoms. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between CV exposure, PTSD, and forgiveness in 256 Salvadoran teachers in both public and private schools in El Salvador. Findings indicate that teachers were exposed to multiple violent events during their lifetime, and younger teachers in the study reported more violence exposure than middle aged and older participants. Older participants were more forgiving than younger participants. Results from a mediation analysis with bootstrapping indicate that the relationship between CV exposure and PTSD symptomatology was mediated by forgiveness. These results suggest that educators who were exposed to CV and who practiced forgiveness also reported fewer PTSD symptoms. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed