Examined children's and adults' perceptions of facial stimuli that were either systematically exaggerated (caricatures) or de-exaggerated (anticaricatures) relative to a norm face. Found that all ages perceived caricatures as the most distinctive version and anticaricatures as least distinctive; the smallest effect was for 6-year-olds. Caricatures were identified as quickly as veridical faces and faster than anticaricatures. Stimulus familiarity interacted with caricature to determine processing speed and choice of best likeness. (Author/KB)