0022-0965/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2006.01.001 Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 94 (2006) 134–162 www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp Sensitivity of 4-year-olds to featural and second-order relational changes in face distinctiveness Elinor McKone ¤ , Barbara L. Boyer School of Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Received 1 November 2004; revised 9 January 2006 Available online 17 February 2006 Abstract Sensitivity to adult ratings of facial distinctiveness (how much an individual stands out in a crowd) has been demonstrated previously in children age 5 years or older. Experiment 1 extended this result to 4-year-olds using a “choose the more distinctive face” task. Children’s patterns of choice across item pairs also correlated well with those of adults. In Experiment 2, original faces were made more distinctive via local feature changes (e.g., bushier eyebrows) or via relational changes (spacing changes, e.g., eyes closer together). Some previous Wndings suggest that children’s sensitivity develops more slowly to relational changes than to featural changes. However, when we matched featural and relational changes for eVects on distinctiveness in adult participants, 4-year-olds were equally sensi- tive to both. Our results suggest that (a) 4-year-olds’ face space has important aspects of structure in common with that of adults and that (b) there is no speciWc developmental delay for a second-order relational component of conWgural/holistic processing.  2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Face recognition; Development; ConWgural processing; Distinctiveness Introduction Faces diVer in their distinctiveness, that is, how much each would stand out in a crowd. In adult participants, ratings of distinctiveness predict performance on a number of tasks. For example, typical faces are accepted faster than distinctive faces in face–nonface * Corresponding author. Fax: +61 2 6125 0499. E-mail address: elinor.mckone@anu.edu.au (E. McKone).