Race-based perceptual asymmetries underlying face processing in infancy.
Adults process other-race faces differently than own-race faces. For instance, a single other-race face in an array of own-race faces attracts Caucasians' attention, but a single own-race face among other-race faces does not. This perceptual asymmetry has been explained by the presence of an other-race feature in other-race faces and its absence in own-race faces; this difference is thought to underlie race-based differences in face processing. We examined the developmental origins of this mechanism in two groups of Caucasian 9-month-olds. Infants in the experimental group exhibited a preference for a pattern containing a single Asian face among seven Caucasian faces over a pattern containing a single Caucasian face among seven Asian faces. This preference was not driven by the majority of elements in the images, because a control group of infants failed to exhibit a preference between homogeneous patterns containing eight Caucasian versus eight Asian faces. The results demonstrate that an other-race face among own-race faces attracts infants' attention but not vice versa. This perceptual asymmetry suggests that the other-race feature is available to Caucasians by 9 months of age, thereby indicating that mechanisms of specialization in face processing originate early in life.
Hayden
Angela
A
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA.
Bhatt
Ramesh S
RS
Zieber
Nicole
N
Kangas
Ashley
A
D001213:Asian / Q000523:psychology*; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D002666:Psychology, Child; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012933:Social Identification; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*