title: Infant preference for female faces occurs for same- but not other-race faces.
abstract: There has been a recent surge of interest in the question of how infants respond to the social attributes of race and gender information in faces. This work has demonstrated that by 3 months of age, infants will respond preferentially to same-race faces and faces depicting the gender of the primary caregiver. In the current study, we investigated emergence of the female face preference for same- versus other-race faces to examine whether the determinants of preference for face gender and race are independent or interactive in young infants. In Expt I, 3-month-old Caucasian infants displayed a preference for female over male faces when the faces were Caucasian, but not when the faces were Asian. In Expt 2, new-born Caucasian infants did not demonstrate a preference for female over male faces for Caucasian faces. The results are discussed in terms of a face prototype that becomes progressively tuned as it is structured by the interaction of the gender and race of faces that are experienced during early development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Delaware, USA.
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Quinn
authors.forename: Lesley
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Uttley
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gibson
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Alan M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Slater
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Pascalis