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Between 6 and 9 months, while infant's ability to discriminate faces within their own racial group is maintained, discrimination of faces within other-race groups declines to a point where 9-month-old infants fail to discriminate other-race faces. Such face perception narrowing can be overcome in various ways at 9 or 12 months of age, such as presenting faces with emotional expressions. Can language itself modulate face narrowing? Many adult studies suggest that language has an impact on the recognition of individuals. For example, adults remember faces previously paired with their native language more accurately than faces paired with a non-native language. We have previously found that from 9 months of age, own-race faces associated with the native language can be learned and recognized whereas own-race faces associated with a non-native language cannot. Based on the language familiarity effect, we hypothesized that the native language could restore recognition of other-race faces after perceptual narrowing has happened. We tested 9- and 12-month-old Caucasian infants. During a familiarization phase, infants were shown still photographs of an Asian face while audio was played either in the native or in the non-native language. Immediately after the familiarization, the familiar face and a novel one were displayed side-by-side for the recognition test. We compared the proportional looking time to the new face to the chance level. Both 9- and 12-month-old infants exhibited recognition memory for the other-race face when familiarized with non-native speech, but not with their native speech. Native language did not facilitate recognition of other-race faces after 9 months of age but a non-native language did, suggesting that 9- and 12-month-olds already have expectations about which language an individual should talk (or at least not talk). Our results confirm the strong links between face and speech processing during infancy.

Perceptual narrowing occurs in human infants for other-race faces. A paired-comparison task measuring infant looking time was used to investigate the hypothesis that adding emotional expressiveness to other-race faces would help infants break through narrowing and reinstate other-race face recognition. Experiment 1 demonstrated narrowing for White infants viewing neutral Asian faces: whereas 3-month-olds differentiated Asian faces, 6-month-olds did not. Experiment 2 showed that White 6-month-olds differentiated the same Asian faces depicted with angry or happy expressions. Experiments 3 and 4 yielded comparable results for 6- and 9-month-olds tested with Black faces (i.e., narrowing with neutral faces, reinstatement of sensitivity when the faces were presented with emotion). Experiment 5 showed that White 6-month-olds did not differentiate inverted angry or happy Asian faces, and that White 9-month-olds did not differentiate inverted angry or happy Black faces. Looking time during familiarization did not differ for upright neutral and emotional faces, indicating that the expressions did not yield more salient stimuli. Also, consistent with the inversion findings, analyses of the low-level image properties as well as equivalent pairwise similarity ratings obtained from White adults for the neutral and emotional faces indicated that the expressions did not simply create more discriminable stimuli. Without support for the lower-level accounts, we discuss the possibility that the infants processed the communicative intent of the expressions. Because angry faces pose threat and happy faces invite affiliation, expression may create motivation to individuate. Overall, the data suggest that early perceptual-social linkage in face representation can arise via a social-to-perceptual pathway.

The influence of motor knowledge on speech perception is well established, but the functional role of the motor system is still poorly understood. The present study explores the hypothesis that speech production abilities may help infants discover phonetic categories in the speech stream, in spite of coarticulation effects. To this aim, we examined the influence of babbling abilities on consonant categorization in 6- and 9-month-old infants. Using an intersensory matching procedure, we investigated the infants' capacity to associate auditory information about a consonant in various vowel contexts with visual information about the same consonant, and to map auditory and visual information onto a common phoneme representation. Moreover, a parental questionnaire evaluated the infants' consonantal repertoire. In a first experiment using /b/-/d/ consonants, we found that infants who displayed babbling abilities and produced the /b/ and/or the /d/ consonants in repetitive sequences were able to correctly perform intersensory matching, while non-babblers were not. In a second experiment using the /v/-/z/ pair, which is as visually contrasted as the /b/-/d/ pair but which is usually not produced at the tested ages, no significant matching was observed, for any group of infants, babbling or not. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that the emergence of babbling could play a role in the extraction of vowel-independent representations for consonant place of articulation. They have important implications for speech perception theories, as they highlight the role of sensorimotor interactions in the development of phoneme representations during the first year of life.

Visual and auditory information jointly contribute to face categorization processes in humans, and gender is a socially relevant multisensory category specified by faces and voices that is detected early in infancy. We used an eye tracker to study how gender coherence in audio and visual modalities influence face scanning in 9- to 12-month-old infants and in adults. While viewing dynamic faces, infants attended to a speaker's mouth region to a greater extent than adults, regardless of speech, which was mostly due to an increase in mean fixation durations. However, the time course of attending to eye and mouth regions showed similarities in adults and infants. Face-voice congruence for gender appeared to have little effect on measures of face scanning. Overall, results suggested that 9- to 12-month-old infants give more weight to the processing of a speaker's mouth compared to adults but that infants already have an adult-like face-scanning strategy.

The present study investigated German-learning 6-month-old infants' preference for visual speech. Visual stimuli in the infants' native language (German) were contrasted with stimuli in a foreign language with similar rhythmical characteristics (English). In a visual preference task, infants were presented with 2 side-by-side silent video clips of the same speaker reciting a nursery rhyme simultaneously in German and English. To assess spontaneous preference for native or non-native visual speech, we computed preference scores towards the English- and German-speaking faces. The findings of the present study revealed a sex difference in visual speech preference. Only female infants exhibited a visual preference, by attending longer to the English-speaking face. Notably, the present study provides the first evidence for sex differences in visual speech preference in infancy.

Previous research has suggested that early deaf signers differ in face processing. Which aspects of face processing are changed and the role that sign language may have played in that change are however unclear. Here, we compared face categorization (human/non-human) and human face recognition performance in early profoundly deaf signers, hearing signers, and hearing non-signers. In the face categorization task, the three groups performed similarly in term of both response time and accuracy. However, in the face recognition task, signers (both deaf and hearing) were slower than hearing non-signers to accurately recognize faces, but had a higher accuracy rate. We conclude that sign language experience, but not deafness, drives a speed-accuracy trade-off in face recognition (but not face categorization). This suggests strategic differences in the processing of facial identity for individuals who use a sign language, regardless of their hearing status.

The visual preferences of infants for adult versus infant faces were investigated. Caucasian 3.5- and 6-month-olds were presented with Caucasian adult vs. infant face pairs and Asian adult vs. infant face pairs, in both upright and inverted orientations. Both age groups showed a visual preference for upright adult over infant faces when the faces were Caucasian, but not when they were Asian. The preference is unlikely to have arisen because of low-level perceptual features because: (1) no preference was observed for the inverted stimuli, (2) no differences were observed in adult similarity ratings of the upright infant-adult face pairs from the two races, and (3) no differences between the infant and adult faces were observed across races in an image-based analysis of salience. The findings are discussed in terms of the social attributes of faces that are learned from experience and what this implies for developmental accounts of a recognition advantage for adult faces in particular and models of face processing more generally.

Two studies with preschool-age children examined the effectiveness of perceptual individuation training at reducing racial bias (Study 1, N = 32; Study 2, N = 56). We found that training preschool-age children to individuate other-race faces resulted in a reduction in implicit racial bias while mere exposure to other-race faces produced no such effect. We also showed that neither individuation training nor mere exposure reduced explicit racial bias. Theoretically, our findings provide strong evidence for a causal link between individual-level face processing and implicit racial bias, and are consistent with the newly proposed perceptual-social linkage hypothesis. Practically, our findings suggest that offering children experiences that allow them to increase their expertise in processing individual other-race faces will help reduce their implicit racial bias.

The present study examined whether perceptual individuation training with other-race faces could reduce preschool children's implicit racial bias. We used an "angry = outgroup" paradigm to measure Chinese children's implicit racial bias against African individuals before and after training. In Experiment 1, children between 4 and 6 years were presented with angry or happy racially ambiguous faces that were morphed between Chinese and African faces. Initially, Chinese children demonstrated implicit racial bias: they categorized happy racially ambiguous faces as own-race (Chinese) and angry racially ambiguous faces as other-race (African). Then, the children participated in a training session where they learned to individuate African faces. Children's implicit racial bias was significantly reduced after training relative to that before training. Experiment 2 used the same procedure as Experiment 1, except that Chinese children were trained with own-race Chinese faces. These children did not display a significant reduction in implicit racial bias. Our results demonstrate that early implicit racial bias can be reduced by presenting children with other-race face individuation training, and support a linkage between perceptual and social representations of face information in children.

Although human infants demonstrate early competence to retain visual information, memory capacities during infancy remain largely undocumented. In three experiments, we used a Visual Paired Comparison (VPC) task to examine abilities to encode identity (Experiment 1) and spatial properties (Experiments 2a and 2b) of unfamiliar complex visual patterns during the first year of life. In the first experiment, 6- and 9-month-old infants were familiarized with visual arrays composed of four abstract patterns arranged in a square configuration. Recognition memory was evaluated by presenting infants with the familiarized array paired with a novel array composed of four new patterns. The second couple of experiments aimed to examine infant ability to encode the spatial relationships between each pattern of the array (e.g., where is A in the square configuration). The 6-, 9- and 12-month-old infants were tested on a spatial version of the VPC task, in which the novel array was composed of the same patterns than the familiarized array but arranged differently within the square configuration. Results indicated that infants retained the identity of the patterns but not their specific spatial relationships within the square configuration (i.e., allocentric location of the patterns), suggesting either an immaturity of the processes involved in object-to-location binding, or the inappropriateness of unfamiliar complex objects to reveal such early allocentric abilities.

Current knowledge about face processing in infancy comes largely from studies using static face stimuli, but faces that infants see in the real world are mostly moving ones. To bridge this gap, 3-, 6-, and 9-month-old Asian infants (N = 118) were familiarized with either moving or static Asian female faces, and then their face recognition was tested with static face images. Eye-tracking methodology was used to record eye movements during the familiarization and test phases. The results showed a developmental change in eye movement patterns, but only for the moving faces. In addition, the more infants shifted their fixations across facial regions, the better their face recognition was, but only for the moving faces. The results suggest that facial movement influences the way faces are encoded from early in development.

Previous research has shown that 3-month-olds prefer own- over other-race faces. The current study used eye-tracking methodology to examine how this visual preference develops with age beyond 3 months and how infants differentially scan between own- and other-race faces when presented simultaneously. We showed own- versus other-race face pairs to 3-, 6-, and 9-month-old Chinese infants. In contrast with 3-month-olds' visual preference for own-race faces, 9-month-olds preferentially looked more at other-race faces. Analyses of eye-tracking data revealed that Chinese infants processed own- and other-race faces differentially. These findings shed important light on the role of visual experience in the development of visual preference and its relation to perceptual narrowing.

We used a matching-to-sample task and manipulated facial pose and feature composition to examine the other-race effect (ORE) in face identity recognition between 5 and 10 years of age. Overall, the present findings provide a genuine measure of own- and other-race face identity recognition in children that is independent of photographic and image processing. The current study also confirms the presence of an ORE in children as young as 5 years of age using a recognition paradigm that is sensitive to their developing cognitive abilities. In addition, the present findings show that with age, increasing experience with familiar classes of own-race faces and further lack of experience with unfamiliar classes of other-race faces serves to maintain the ORE between 5 and 10 years of age rather than exacerbate the effect. All age groups also showed a differential effect of stimulus facial pose in their recognition of the internal regions of own- and other-race faces. Own-race inner faces were remembered best when three-quarter poses were used during familiarization and frontal poses were used during the recognition test. In contrast, other-race inner faces were remembered best when frontal poses were used during familiarization and three-quarter poses were used during the recognition test. Thus, children encode and/or retrieve own- and other-race faces from memory in qualitatively different ways.

The current study aimed at investigating own- vs. other-species preferences in 3-month-old infants. The infants' eye movements were recorded during a visual preference paradigm to assess whether they show a preference for own-species faces when contrasted with other-species faces. Human and monkey faces, equated for all low-level perceptual characteristics, were used. Our results demonstrated that 3-month-old infants preferred the human face, suggesting that the face perception system becomes species-specific after 3 months of visual experience with a specific class of faces. The eye tracking results are also showing that fixations were more focused on the eye area of human faces, supporting the notion of their importance in holding visual attention. (Contains 2 figures.)

The present study investigates the human-specificity of the orienting system that allows neonates to look preferentially at faces. Three experiments were carried out to determine whether the face-perception system that is present at birth is broad enough to include both human and nonhuman primate faces. The results demonstrate that the newborns did not show any spontaneous visual preference for the human face when presented simultaneously with a monkey face that shared the same features, configuration, and low-level perceptual properties (Experiment 1). The newborns were, however, able to discriminate between the 2 faces belonging to the 2 different species (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, the newborns were found to prefer looking at an upright, compared with an inverted, monkey face, as they do for human faces. Overall, the results demonstrate that newborns perceive monkey and human faces in a similar way. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the system underlying face preference at birth is broad enough to bias newborns' attention toward both human and nonhuman primate faces. (Contains 3 figures.)

The current study investigated if deficits in processing emotional expression affect facial identity processing and vice versa in children with autism spectrum disorder. Children with autism and IQ and age matched typically developing children classified faces either by emotional expression, thereby ignoring facial identity or by facial identity disregarding emotional expression. Typically developing children processed facial identity independently from facial expressions but processed facial expressions in interaction with identity. Children with autism processed both facial expression and identity independently of each other. They selectively directed their attention to one facial parameter despite variations in the other. Results indicate that there is no interaction in processing facial identity and emotional expression in autism spectrum disorder.

An abundance of experience with own-race faces and limited to no experience with other-race faces has been associated with better recognition memory for own-race faces in infants, children, and adults. This study investigated the developmental origins of this other-race effect (ORE) by examining the role of a salient perceptual property of faces--that of skin color. Six- and 9-month-olds' recognition memory for own- and other-race faces was examined using infant-controlled habituation and visual-paired comparison at test. Infants were shown own- or other-race faces in color or with skin color cues minimized in grayscale images. Results for the color stimuli replicated previous findings that infants show an ORE in face recognition memory. Results for the grayscale stimuli showed that even when a salient perceptual cue to race, such as skin color information, is minimized, 6- to 9-month-olds, nonetheless, show an ORE in their face recognition memory. Infants' use of shape-based and configural cues for face recognition is discussed. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

In two experiments, we investigated the development of representational flexibility in visual recognition memory during infancy using the Visual Paired Comparison (VPC) task. In Experiment 1, 6- and 9-month-old infants exhibited recognition when familiarization and test occurred in the same room, but showed no evidence of recognition when familiarization and test occurred in different rooms. In contrast, 12- and 18-month-old infants exhibited recognition irrespective of testing room. Thus, flexibility across a change of room was observed at a younger age than flexibility across a change of background that has previously been seen with the VPC procedure (Robinson & Pascalis, 2004). To determine if limitations in representational flexibility across a change of background could be overcome by experiences during encoding, in Experiment 2, 6-, 9-, 12- and 18-month-old infants were familiarized with a picture on multiple backgrounds. At all ages, infants showed recognition across a change in background at test. These findings indicate that dissociating an item from its context during encoding may be an important factor in understanding the representational flexibility of visual recognition memory in infancy. Developmental changes in representational flexibility are likely driven by changes in the functional maturity of the hippocampal formation, and experience. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

The present study examined whether 6- and 9-month-old Caucasian infants could categorize faces according to race. In Experiment 1, infants were familiarized with different female faces from a common ethnic background (i.e. either Caucasian or Asian) and then tested with female faces from a novel race category. Nine-month-olds were able to form discrete categories of Caucasian and Asian faces. However, 6-month-olds did not form discrete categories of faces based on race. In Experiment 2, a second group of 6- and 9-month-olds was tested to determine whether they could discriminate between different faces from the same race category. Results showed that both age groups could only discriminate between different faces from the own-race category of Caucasian faces. The findings of the two experiments taken together suggest that 9-month-olds formed a category of Caucasian faces that are further differentiated at the individual level. In contrast, although they could form a category of Asian faces, they could not discriminate between such other-race faces. This asymmetry in category formation at 9 months (i.e. categorization of own-race faces vs. categorical perception of other-race faces) suggests that differential experience with own- and other-race faces plays an important role in infants' acquisition of face processing abilities.

Adults recognize familiar faces better by their internal than external face parts. It is not clear when children achieve this internal face part advantage, however, previous research has suggested that it emerges after the age of seven years. The present study was the first study to show personally familiar adult faces (school staff) to children aged 5-6, 7-8 and 10-11 years, and we asked the children to identify which faces were familiar. An internal face part advantage was found at all ages.

A visual preference procedure was used to examine preferences among faces of different ethnicities (African, Asian, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern) in Chinese 3-month-old infants exposed only to Chinese faces. The infants demonstrated a preference for faces from their own ethnic group. Alongside previous results showing that Caucasian infants exposed only to Caucasian faces prefer same-race faces (Kelly et al., 2005) and that Caucasian and African infants exposed only to native faces prefer the same over the other-race faces (Bar-Haim, Ziv, Lamy, & Hodes, 2006), the findings reported here (a) extend the same-race preference observed in young infants to a new race of infants (Chinese), and (b) show that cross-race preferences for same-race faces extend beyond the perceptually robust contrast between African and Caucasian faces. (Contains 1 figure.)

We investigated whether children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) have a deficit in recognising familiar faces. Children with ASD were given a forced choice familiar face recognition task with three conditions: full faces, inner face parts and outer face parts. Control groups were children with developmental delay (DD) and typically developing (TD) children. Children with ASD and children with DD recognised slightly fewer faces than did TD children, but there was no ASD-specific deficit. All groups displayed the same pattern of face part superiority: full-face superiority over inner face, and inner face superiority over outer face. Therefore, the pattern of familiar face recognition by children with ASD was similar to the pattern found in other children.

Research using the visual paired comparison task has shown that visual recognition memory across changing contexts is dependent on the integrity of the hippocampal formation in human adults and in monkeys. The acquisition of contextual flexibility may contribute to the change in memory performance that occurs late in the first year of life. To assess this skill, the images are presented on a background of one colour during familiarization and on a different coloured background during the recognition test. Our research showed that recognition memory is impaired by a change in context at 6 and 12 months of age but is unaffected at 18 and 24 months of age. The findings are discussed in relation to hippocampal development and the proposed developmental step in memory at 9-10 months of age.