title: Audio-Visual Perception of Gender by Infants Emerges Earlier for Adult-Directed Speech.
abstract: Early multisensory perceptual experiences shape the abilities of infants to perform socially-relevant visual categorization, such as the extraction of gender, age, and emotion from faces. Here, we investigated whether multisensory perception of gender is influenced by infant-directed (IDS) or adult-directed (ADS) speech. Six-, 9-, and 12-month-old infants saw side-by-side silent video-clips of talking faces (a male and a female) and heard either a soundtrack of a female or a male voice telling a story in IDS or ADS. Infants participated in only one condition, either IDS or ADS. Consistent with earlier work, infants displayed advantages in matching female relative to male faces and voices. Moreover, the new finding that emerged in the current study was that extraction of gender from face and voice was stronger at 6 months with ADS than with IDS, whereas at 9 and 12 months, matching did not differ for IDS versus ADS. The results indicate that the ability to perceive gender in audiovisual speech is influenced by speech manner. Our data suggest that infants may extract multisensory gender information developmentally earlier when looking at adults engaged in conversation with other adults (i.e., ADS) than when adults are directly talking to them (i.e., IDS). Overall, our findings imply that the circumstances of social interaction may shape early multisensory abilities to perceive gender.
authors.affiliation: Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.|LPNC, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.|LPNC, CNRS-UMR 5105, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Anne-Raphaëlle
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Richoz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, United States of America.
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Quinn
authors.affiliation: LPNC, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.|LPNC, CNRS-UMR 5105, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hillairet de Boisferon
authors.affiliation: LPNC, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.|LPNC, CNRS-UMR 5105, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Carole
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.affiliation: LPNC, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.|LPNC, CNRS-UMR 5105, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Loevenbruck
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Lewkowicz
authors.affiliation: Institute of Child Study University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: LPNC, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.|LPNC, CNRS-UMR 5105, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Marjorie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dole
authors.affiliation: Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Caldara
authors.affiliation: LPNC, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.|LPNC, CNRS-UMR 5105, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Pascalis
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D002657:Child Development; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013060:Speech; D013067:Speech Perception; D014796:Visual Perception; D014831:Voice