IngentaConnect Infant preference for female faces occurs for same- but not other...

Authors: Quinn, Paul C.¹; Uttley, Lesley²; Lee, Kang³; Gibson, Alan²; Smith, Michael²; Slater, Alan M.⁴; Pascalis, Olivier²

Source: Journal of Neuropsychology, Volume 2, Number 1, March 2008 , pp. 15-26(12)

Publisher: British Psychological Society

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 1, 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.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1348/174866407X231029

Affiliations: 1: Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Delaware, USA 2: Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK 3: Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada 4: School of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

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Infant preference for female faces occurs for same- but not other-race faces