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Associations with colors are a rich source of meaning, and there has been considerable interest in understanding the capacity of color to shape our functioning and behavior as a result of color associations. However, abstract conceptual color associations have not been comprehensively investigated, and many of the effects of color on psychological functioning reported in the literature are therefore reliant on ad hoc rationalizations of conceptual associations with color (e.g., blue = openness) to explain effects. In the present work we conduct a systematic, cross-cultural, mapping of conceptual color associations using the full set of hues from the World Color Survey (WCS). In Experiments 1a and 1b we explored the conceptual associations that English monolingual, Chinese bilingual, and Chinese monolingual speaking adults have with each of the 11 Basic English Color Terms (black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, gray). In Experiment 2 we determined which specific physical WCS colors are associated with which concepts in these three language groups. The findings reveal conceptual color associations that appear to be universal across all cultures (e.g., white - purity; blue - water/sky related; green - health; purple - regal; pink - "female" traits) as well as culture specific (e.g., red and orange - enthusiastic in Chinese; red - attraction in English). Importantly, the findings provide a crucial constraint on, and resource for, future work that seeks to understand the effect of color on cognition and behavior, enabling stronger a priori predictions about universal as well as culturally relative effects of conceptual color associations on cognition and behavior to be systematically tested.

Infants’ oculomotor tracking develops rapidly but is poorer when there are horizontal and vertical movement components. Additionally, persistence of objects moving through occlusion emerges at 4 months but initially is absent for objects moving obliquely. In two experiments, we recorded eye movements of thirty-two 4- month-old and thirty-two 6-month-old infants (mainly Caucasian-White) tracking horizontal, vertical, and oblique trajectories. Infants tracked oblique trajectories less accurately, but 6-month olds tracked more accurately such that they tracked oblique trajectories as accurately as 4-month olds tracked horizontal and vertical trajectories. Similar results emerged when the object was temporarily occluded. Thus, 4-month olds’ tracking of oblique trajectories may be insufficient to support object persistence, whereas 6-month olds may track sufficiently accurately to perceive object persistence for all trajectory orientations.

Perception of object persistence across occlusion emerges at around 4 months of age for objects moving horizontally or vertically. In addition, congruent auditory information for movement enhances perception of persistence of an object moving horizontally. In two experiments, we examined the effect of presenting bimodal (visual and auditory) sensory information, both congruently and incongruently, for a vertical moving object occlusion event. A total of 68 4-month-old infants (34 girls) were tested for perception of persistence of an object moving up and down, passing at each translation behind a centrally placed occluder. Infants were exposed to these visual events accompanied by no sound, spatially colocated sound, or congruent or incongruent pitch–height correspondence sounds. Both spatially colocated and congruent pitch–height auditory information enhanced perception of trajectory continuity. However, no impairment occurred when pitch–height sound information was presented incongruently. These results highlight the importance of taking a multisensory approach to infant perceptual development.

Little is known about how infants born and raised in a multiracial environment process own‐ and other‐race faces. We investigated face recognition of 3‐ to 4‐month‐old (N = 36) and 8‐ to 9‐month‐old (N = 38) Chinese infants from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a population that is considered multiracial, using female and male faces that are of infants’ own‐race (Chinese), experienced other‐race (Malay) and less experi‐enced other‐race (Caucasian‐White). Three‐ to 4‐month‐olds recognized own‐race female faces, whereas 8‐ to 9‐month‐olds also recognized experienced other‐race female faces (Malay) in addition to own‐race female faces (Chinese). Furthermore, infants from this population did not show recognition for male faces at any age. This contrasts with 8‐ to 9‐month‐old British‐White infants (Tham, Bremner, & Hay, 2015), a group that is considered single‐race, who recognized female and male own‐race faces. It appears that for infants born and raised in a multiracial environment, there is a developmental shift from a female‐based own‐race recognition advantage to a female‐based own‐ and experienced other‐race advantage that may relate to infants’ social and caregiving experiences.

This entry begins by reviewing aspects of low level perception in infancy, specifically shape and colour perception. Then evidence is presented that object persistence, rather than being conceptualised as an innate cognitive ability, is a high level perceptual process that develops through experience. During early infancy, object persistence initially extends across short gaps in time or space, but by the middle of the first year, it is more robust. It appears that young infants need more cues to specify an occlusion event and hence object persistence. Given problems arising from the fact that the main methods used in infant perception and cognition are based on looking duration to the object array, there is a need to adopt other methods, specifically eye tracking, EEG, and social looking as useful supplements to conventional methods.

The role of experience with other-race faces on the development of the ORE was investigated through a cross-cultural comparison between 5- to 6-year-old (n = 83) and 13- to 14-year-old (n = 66) children raised in a monoracial (British-White) and a multiracial (Malaysian-Chinese) population. British-White children showed an ORE to three other-race faces (Chinese, Malay, and African-Black) that was stable across age. Malaysian-Chinese children showed recognition deficit for less experienced faces (African-Black) but showed a recognition advantage for faces of which they have direct or indirect experience. Interestingly, younger (Malaysian-Chinese) children showed no ORE for female faces such that they can recognize all female faces regardless of race. These findings point to the importance of early race and gender experiences in re-organizing the face representation to accommodate changes in experience across development.

Poorer recognition of other-race faces relative to own-race faces is well documented from late infancy to adulthood. Research has revealed an increase in the other race effect (ORE) during the first year of life, but there is some disagreement regarding the age at which it emerges. Using cropped faces to eliminate discrimination based on external features, visual paired comparison and spontaneous visual preference measures were used to investigate the relationship between ORE and face gender at 3-4 and 8-9 months. Caucasian-White 3- to 4-month-olds' discrimination of Chinese, Malay, and Caucasian-White faces showed an own-race advantage for female faces alone whereas at 8-9 months the own-race advantage was general across gender. This developmental effect is accompanied by a preference for female over male faces at 4 months and no gender preference at 9 months. The pattern of recognition advantage and preference suggests that there is a shift from a female-based own-race recognition advantage to a general own-race recognition advantage, in keeping with a visual and social experience-based account of ORE.

The other-race effect (ORE) refers to the impoverished recognition of other-race faces relative to own-race faces. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the ORE in two populations (single-race and multi-race) from infancy to adolescence/adulthood as a means of testing and clarifying both the perceptual expertise account and the categorisation-individuation model (CIM). Of six experiments using age-relevant measures, four investigated the ORE when all other factors (social/motivation) are equal, and two investigated when non-race based social categorisation is manipulated. Using a more refined set of stimuli (limited to external facial information), Experiments 1 to 4 supports the assertion that recognition is affected by racial experiences. Furthermore, the interpretations extended the perceptual expertise account by suggesting that such experiences can also differ across face gender and face race at different stages of development. Experiments 5 and 6 extended the categorisation-individuation model by suggesting that population differences and the subjective importance of motivation to individuate faces could modify the ORE when non-race based social categorisation (personality affiliation) was manipulated. These findings were interpreted using a principle of concept of broadly tuned versus narrowly tuned representation within Valentine's (1991) multidimensional face-space model. The findings from this thesis address the importance of considering a combination of face experiences (e.g., race, gender), the social importance of individuating faces at different stages of development (social relationships), and how broadly tuned face representation can have a different effect on ORE compared with a narrowly tuned face representation.

The other-race effect (ORE) refers to the impoverished recognition of other-race faces relative to own-race faces. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the ORE in two populations (single-race and multi-race) from infancy to adolescence/adulthood as a means of testing and clarifying both the perceptual expertise account and the categorisation-individuation model (CIM). Of six experiments using age-relevant measures, four investigated the ORE when all other factors (social/motivation) are equal, and two investigated when non-race based social categorisation is manipulated. Using a more refined set of stimuli (limited to external facial information), Experiments 1 to 4 supports the assertion that recognition is affected by racial experiences. Furthermore, the interpretations extended the perceptual expertise account by suggesting that such experiences can also differ across face gender and face race at different stages of development. Experiments 5 and 6 extended the categorisation-individuation model by suggesting that population differences and the subjective importance of motivation to individuate faces could modify the ORE when non-race based social categorisation (personality affiliation) was manipulated. These findings were interpreted using a principle of concept of broadly tuned versus narrowly tuned representation within Valentine's (1991) multidimensional face-space model. The findings from this thesis address the importance of considering a combination of face experiences (e.g., race, gender), the social importance of individuating faces at different stages of development (social relationships), and how broadly tuned face representation can have a different effect on ORE compared with a narrowly tuned face representation.