1
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Kim KK, Fang W, Liu AY, Panesar D, Xiao NG. Altered development of face recognition among infants born amid the COVID-19 pandemic. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 244:105942. [PMID: 38703752 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105942] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2023] [Revised: 01/25/2024] [Accepted: 03/25/2024] [Indexed: 05/06/2024]
Abstract
To effectively contain the spread of COVID-19, public health agencies mandated special regulations. Although they protected us from COVID-19, these restrictions have inevitably changed the environment around us. It remains unclear how these changes may have affected early cognitive development among infants born during the pandemic. Thus, this study examined how the COVID-19 restrictions have affected infants' face recognition ability, a hallmark of their cognitive capacities. Specifically, we used the familiarization and visual pair comparison paradigm to examine face recognition performance among infants aged 6 to 14 months amid the second wave of the pandemic (February to July 2021). Experiment 1 investigated the recognition of unmasked faces and found that only younger infants, but not older infants, recognized faces by showing a novelty preference. Experiment 2 examined the recognition of faces wearing masks and found that only older infants, but not younger ones, recognized faces by exhibiting a familiarity preference. These results suggest that with limited interactions during the pandemic, infants could have developed an overly specialized face processing ability that failed to recognize the faces of strangers. Moreover, infants could have obtained more information on masked faces during the pandemic and adapted to the current situation. In Expreiment 3, we further confirmed the restriction on infants' interpersonal experiences with a survey conducted both before and during the pandemic. Overall, these findings demonstrated how the pandemic altered early perceptual development and further confirmed that interpersonal experiences during infancy are critical in their cognitive development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kate Kyuri Kim
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada
| | - Wei Fang
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada
| | - Anna Y Liu
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada
| | - Darshan Panesar
- Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada
| | - Naiqi G Xiao
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada.
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2
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Xiao NG, Ghersin H, Dombrowski ND, Boldin AM, Emberson LL. Infants' top-down perceptual modulation is specific to own-race faces. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 242:105889. [PMID: 38442685 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105889] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2023] [Revised: 01/27/2024] [Accepted: 01/29/2024] [Indexed: 03/07/2024]
Abstract
Recent studies have revealed the influence of higher-level cognitive systems in modulating perceptual processing (top-down perceptual modulation) in infancy. However, more research is needed to understand how top-down processes in infant perception contribute to early perceptual development. To this end, this study examined infants' top-down perception of own- and other-race faces to reveal whether top-down modulation is linked to the emergence of perceptual specialization. Infants first learned an association between a sound and faces, with the race of the faces manipulated between groups (own race vs. other race). We then tested infants' face perception across various levels of perceptual difficulty (manipulated by presentation duration) and indexed top-down perception by the change in perception when infants heard the sound previously associated with the face (predictive sound) versus an irrelevant sound. Infants exhibited top-down face perception for own-race faces (Experiment 1). However, we present new evidence that infants did not show evidence of top-down modulation for other-race faces (Experiment 2), suggesting an experience-based specificity of this capacity with more effective top-down modulation in familiar perceptual contexts. In addition, we ruled out the possibility that this face race effect was due to differences in infants' associative learning of the sound and faces between the two groups. This work has important implications for understanding the mechanisms supporting perceptual development and how they relate to top-down perception in infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naiqi G Xiao
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada; Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
| | - Hila Ghersin
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
| | | | - Alexandra M Boldin
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
| | - Lauren L Emberson
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA; Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada
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3
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Dillmann J, Evertz J, Krasotkina A, Clerc O, Pascalis O, Schwarzer G. Older infants' social learning behavior under uncertainty is modulated by the interaction of face and speech processing. INFANCY 2024; 29:56-71. [PMID: 37975614 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12566] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2022] [Revised: 09/29/2023] [Accepted: 10/06/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
The origin of face or language influences infants' perceptual processing and social learning behavior. However, it remains unclear how infants' social learning behavior is affected when both information are provided simultaneously. Hence, the current study investigated whether and how infants' social learning in terms of gaze following is influenced by face race and language origin of an interaction partner in an uncertain situation. Our sample consisted of 91 Caucasian infants from German speaking families. They were divided into 2 age groups: Younger infants were 5- to 8-month-old (n = 46) and the older infants 11- to 20-month-old (n = 45). We used a modified online version of the gaze following paradigm by Xiao and colleagues by varying face race (Caucasian, and Asian faces) and language (German and French) of a female actor. We recorded infants looking behavior via webcam and coded it offline. Our results revealed that older but not younger infants were biased to follow the gaze of own-race adults speaking their native language. Our findings show that older infants are clearly influenced by adults' ethnicity and language in social learning situations of uncertainty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia Dillmann
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany
- Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior (CMBB), Marburg, Germany
| | - Judith Evertz
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany
| | - Anna Krasotkina
- Department of Psychology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Olivier Clerc
- LPNC - Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble, France
| | | | - Gudrun Schwarzer
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany
- Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior (CMBB), Marburg, Germany
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4
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Carrasco VI, Solgi M, Davis A, Chavis A, Zuckerman K, Augustyn M. Is My Child Racist? Supporting Caregivers in Conceptualizing Race for Children. J Dev Behav Pediatr 2023; 44:e394-e396. [PMID: 37276359 DOI: 10.1097/dbp.0000000000001196] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
CASE M is a 4-year-old White girl whose parents contact their primary care pediatric clinician with a behavioral concern: over the course of several months, M has insisted that she is pregnant with quintuplets. Although some of the quintuplets have light skin tones, others have darker skin tones. When elaborating about the fantasy, M often explains that the babies fight in her tummy, and the Brown babies are "acting badly" by spitting, scratching, and hitting the others. Although M can sometimes provide an explanation for why the Brown babies misbehaved (i.e., they ate chocolate), often she is not able to produce an answer. The child frequently reiterates the same story to her parents, which has left M's parents uncertain how to react.In terms of her life course thus far, M has had typical development and behavior. She has attended all her well-child visits and met the usual developmental milestones. Beyond general development, her exposure to diverse people has been ample because she is from a multiethnic household in which 2 languages are regularly spoken. Outside of her home, she has close Brown and Black friends in her preschool, and the school has discussed race and skin color in an affirming way with the children. At home, she has books that feature children of different skin tones.What advice can M's pediatric clinician offer? How can parents and pediatric clinicians support children who present with race-based thoughts or actions that seem discriminatory?
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mohadeseh Solgi
- Division of General Pediatrics, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR
| | - Aaron Davis
- Division of General Pediatrics, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR
| | - Antwon Chavis
- Division of General Pediatrics, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR
| | - Katharine Zuckerman
- Division of General Pediatrics, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR
| | - Marilyn Augustyn
- Division of General Pediatrics, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR
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5
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Who is running our experiments? The influence of experimenter identity in the marshmallow task. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101271] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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6
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Roth KC, Reynolds GD. Neural correlates of subordinate-level categorization of own- and other-race faces in infancy. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2022; 230:103733. [DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103733] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2022] [Revised: 07/30/2022] [Accepted: 08/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
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7
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St. Pierre T, White KS, Johnson EK. Experimenter identity: An invisible, lurking variable in developmental research. INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.2357] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Thomas St. Pierre
- Department of Psychology University of Toronto Mississauga Mississauga Ontario Canada
| | | | - Elizabeth K. Johnson
- Department of Psychology University of Toronto Mississauga Mississauga Ontario Canada
- Department of Psychology University of Toronto Toronto Ontario Canada
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8
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Breton JM, Eisner JS, Gandhi VS, Musick N, Zhang A, Long KL, Perloff OS, Hu KY, Pham CM, Lalchandani P, Barraza MK, Kantor B, Kaufer D, Ben-Ami Bartal I. Neural activation associated with outgroup helping in adolescent rats. iScience 2022; 25:104412. [PMID: 35663035 PMCID: PMC9160754 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104412] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2021] [Revised: 03/14/2022] [Accepted: 05/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Prosocial behavior, helping others in need in particular, occurs preferentially in response to the perceived distress of one's own group members or ingroup. To investigate the development of ingroup bias, neural activity during a helping test was analyzed in adolescent and adult rats. Although adults selectively released trapped ingroup members, adolescent rats helped both ingroup and outgroup members, suggesting that ingroup bias emerges in adulthood. Analysis of brain-wide neural activity, indexed by expression of the early-immediate gene c-Fos, revealed increased activity for ingroup members across a broad set of regions previously associated with empathy. Adolescents showed reduced hippocampal and insular activity and increased orbitofrontal cortex activity compared to adults. Non-helper adolescents demonstrated increased amygdala connectivity. These findings demonstrate that biases for group-dependent prosocial behavior develop with age in rats and suggest that specific brain regions contribute to prosocial selectivity, pointing to possible targets for the functional modulation of ingroup bias.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jocelyn M. Breton
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Jordan S. Eisner
- Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Vaidehi S. Gandhi
- Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Natalie Musick
- Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Aileen Zhang
- Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Kimberly L.P. Long
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Olga S. Perloff
- Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Kelsey Y. Hu
- Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Chau M. Pham
- Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Pooja Lalchandani
- Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Matthew K. Barraza
- Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Ben Kantor
- School of Psychological Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, 6997801
| | - Daniela Kaufer
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, ON M5G1M1, Canada
| | - Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal
- School of Psychological Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, 6997801
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9
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Weatherhead D, Werker JF. 20-month-olds selectively generalize newly learned word meanings based on cues to linguistic community membership. Dev Sci 2022; 25:e13234. [PMID: 35041239 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13234] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2021] [Revised: 11/16/2021] [Accepted: 01/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
A growing body of work suggests that speaker-race influences how infants and toddlers interpret the meanings of words. In two experiments, we explored the role of speaker-race on whether newly learned word-object pairs are generalized to new speakers. Seventy-two 20-month-olds were taught two word-object pairs from a familiar race speaker, and two different word-object pairs from an unfamiliar race speaker (4 new pairs total). Using an intermodal preferential looking procedure, their interpretation of these new word-object pairs was tested using an unpictured novel speaker. We found that toddlers did not generalize word meanings taught by an unfamiliar race speaker to a new speaker (Experiment 1), unless given evidence that the unfamiliar race speaker was a member of the child's linguistic community through affiliative behaviour and linguistic competence (Experiment 2). In both experiments, generalization was observed for the word-object pairs taught by the familiar race speaker. These experiments indicate that children attend to speakers' non-linguistic properties, and this in turn can influence the perceived relevance of speakers' labels. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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Affiliation(s)
- Drew Weatherhead
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, NS, Canada
| | - Janet F Werker
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, BC, Canada
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10
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Singh L, Phneah KT, Wijayaratne DC, Lee K, Quinn PC. Effects of interracial experience on the race preferences of infants. J Exp Child Psychol 2022; 216:105352. [PMID: 35033787 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105352] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2021] [Revised: 11/05/2021] [Accepted: 12/11/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Over their first year of life, infants express visual preferences for own- versus other-race faces. This developmental transition has primarily been investigated in monoracial societies where infants have limited personal or societal contact with other races. We investigated whether previously reported visual preferences for race generalize to a multiracial society (i.e., Singapore). In addition, we investigated effects of caregiver race on visual preferences for race. In Experiment 1, race preferences were measured at 3, 6, and 9 months of age for own-race (Chinese) versus other-race (Indian) faces in infants with no regular interaction with Indian-race individuals. Singaporean infants displayed a significant visual preference for Indian-race faces at each age group. Furthermore, infants raised with other-race caregivers demonstrated an age-related increase in other-race visual preferences. The visual preferences of infants for other-race faces were predicted by the extent of other-race contact. In Experiment 2, we confirmed that an other-race visual preference was not exclusive to Indian faces in a sample of 6-month-old Singaporean Chinese infants who demonstrated a similar other-race visual preference for Caucasian faces over Chinese faces. Findings are discussed in terms of the influence of other-race contact on visual preferences for race in infants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore.
| | - Kai Ting Phneah
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Devni C Wijayaratne
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Kang Lee
- Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada
| | - Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA.
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11
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Fawcett C. Sharing a Common Language Affects Infants’ Pupillary Contagion. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2021.2013225] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
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12
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Hoicka E, Saul J, Prouten E, Whitehead L, Sterken R. Language Signaling High Proportions and Generics Lead to Generalizing, but Not Essentializing, for Novel Social Kinds. Cogn Sci 2021; 45:e13051. [PMID: 34758149 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2021] [Revised: 08/10/2021] [Accepted: 09/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Generics (e.g., "Dogs bark") are thought by many to lead to essentializing: to assuming that members of the same category share an internal property that causally grounds shared behaviors and traits, even without evidence of such a shared property. Similarly, generics are thought to increase generalizing, that is, attributing properties to other members of the same group given evidence that some members of the group have the property. However, it is not clear from past research what underlies the capacity of generic language to increase essentializing and generalizing. Is it specific to generics, or are there broader mechanisms at work, such as the fact that generics are terms that signal high proportions? Study 1 (100 5-6 year-olds, 140 adults) found that neither generics, nor high-proportion quantifiers ("most," "many") elicited essentializing about a novel social kind (Zarpies). However, both generics and high-proportion quantifiers led adults and, to a lesser extent, children, to generalize, with high-proportion quantifiers doing so more than generics for adults. Specifics ("this") did not protect against either essentializing or generalizing when compared to the quantifier "some." Study 2 (100 5-6 year-olds, 112 adults) found that neither generics nor visual imagery signaling high proportions led to essentializing. While generics increased generalizing compared to specifics and visual imagery signaling both low and high proportions for adults, there was no difference in generalizing for children. Our findings suggest high-proportion quantifiers, including generics, lead adults, and to some extent children, to generalize, but not essentialize, about novel social kinds.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jennifer Saul
- Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield.,Philosophy Department, University of Waterloo
| | | | | | - Rachel Sterken
- Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo.,Philosophy, Hong Kong University
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13
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Skversky-Blocq Y, Haaker J, Shechner T. Watch and Learn: Vicarious Threat Learning across Human Development. Brain Sci 2021; 11:brainsci11101345. [PMID: 34679409 PMCID: PMC8533719 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11101345] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2021] [Revised: 10/04/2021] [Accepted: 10/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Vicarious threat learning is an important pathway in learning about safety and danger in the environment and is therefore critical for survival. It involves learning by observing another person's (the demonstrator) fearful responses to threat and begins as early as infancy. The review discusses the literature on vicarious threat learning and infers how this learning pathway may evolve over human development. We begin by discussing the methods currently being used to study observational threat learning in the laboratory. Next, we focus on the social factors influencing vicarious threat learning; this is followed by a review of vicarious threat learning among children and adolescents. Finally, we examine the neural mechanisms underpinning vicarious threat learning across human development. To conclude, we encourage future research directions that will help elucidate how vicarious threat learning emerges and how it relates to the development of normative fear and pathological anxiety.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yael Skversky-Blocq
- School of Psychological Sciences and the Integrated Brain and Behavior Research Center, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel;
| | - Jan Haaker
- Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20251 Hamburg, Germany;
| | - Tomer Shechner
- School of Psychological Sciences and the Integrated Brain and Behavior Research Center, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel;
- Correspondence:
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14
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Tripp A, Feldman NH, Idsardi WJ. Social Inference May Guide Early Lexical Learning. Front Psychol 2021; 12:645247. [PMID: 34093326 PMCID: PMC8175981 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645247] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2020] [Accepted: 04/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
We incorporate social reasoning about groups of informants into a model of word learning, and show that the model accounts for infant looking behavior in tasks of both word learning and recognition. Simulation 1 models an experiment where 16-month-old infants saw familiar objects labeled either correctly or incorrectly, by either adults or audio talkers. Simulation 2 reinterprets puzzling data from the Switch task, an audiovisual habituation procedure wherein infants are tested on familiarized associations between novel objects and labels. Eight-month-olds outperform 14-month-olds on the Switch task when required to distinguish labels that are minimal pairs (e.g., “buk” and “puk”), but 14-month-olds' performance is improved by habituation stimuli featuring multiple talkers. Our modeling results support the hypothesis that beliefs about knowledgeability and group membership guide infant looking behavior in both tasks. These results show that social and linguistic development interact in non-trivial ways, and that social categorization findings in developmental psychology could have substantial implications for understanding linguistic development in realistic settings where talkers vary according to observable features correlated with social groupings, including linguistic, ethnic, and gendered groups.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alayo Tripp
- Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States
| | - Naomi H Feldman
- Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.,Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
| | - William J Idsardi
- Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
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15
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Werchan DM, Amso D. All contexts are not created equal: Social stimuli win the competition for organizing reinforcement learning in 9-month-old infants. Dev Sci 2021; 24:e13088. [PMID: 33484594 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13088] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2020] [Revised: 01/15/2021] [Accepted: 01/19/2021] [Indexed: 01/31/2023]
Abstract
Previous work has shown that infants as young as 8 months of age can use certain features of the environment, such as the shape or color of visual stimuli, as cues to organize simple inputs into hierarchical rule structures, a robust form of reinforcement learning that supports generalization of prior learning to new contexts. However, especially in cluttered naturalistic environments, there are an abundance of potential cues that can be used to structure learning into hierarchical rule structures. It is unclear how infants determine what features constitute a higher-order context to organize inputs into hierarchical rule structures. Here, we examine whether 9-month-old infants are biased to use social stimuli, relative to non-social stimuli, as a higher-order context to organize learning of simple visuospatial inputs into hierarchical rule sets. Infants were presented with four face/color-target location pairings, which could be learned most simply as individual associations. Alternatively, infants could use the faces or colorful backgrounds as a higher-order context to organize the inputs into simpler color-location or face-location rules, respectively. Infants were then given a generalization test designed to probe how they learned the initial pairings. The results indicated that infants appeared to use the faces as a higher-order context to organize simpler color-location rules, which then supported generalization of learning to new face contexts. These findings provide new evidence that infants are biased to organize reinforcement learning around social stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Denise M Werchan
- Department of Population Health, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Dima Amso
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
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16
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Singh L, Moh Y, Ding X, Lee K, Quinn PC. Cognitive flexibility and parental education differentially predict implicit and explicit racial biases in bilingual children. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 204:105059. [PMID: 33387897 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2020] [Revised: 11/12/2020] [Accepted: 11/15/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Prior research has suggested that bilingual children demonstrate reduced social bias relative to their monolingual peers. In particular, they exhibit less implicit bias against racial outgroups. However, the cognitive determinants of racial bias in bilingual children remain unclear. In the current study, relationships between racial bias and three cognitive factors (inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and perspective-taking ability), along with language proficiency and parental education, were investigated in a sample of bilingual preschoolers (N = 55). Children were bilingual learners of English and Mandarin. Results demonstrated that implicit bias was predicted by cognitive flexibility, independent of variation in inhibitory control, second language vocabulary, perspective taking, and parental education. In contrast, explicit bias was predicted by parental education alone and not by cognitive or linguistic factors. Findings suggest that increased cognitive flexibility, often thought to be an outgrowth of bilingual experience, may also be associated with a reduction in implicit bias. Findings are discussed in terms of specific mechanisms that may link cognitive factors, bilingualism, and racial bias.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore.
| | - Yvonne Moh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Xiaopan Ding
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Kang Lee
- Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada
| | - Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA.
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17
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Quinn PC, Balas BJ, Pascalis O. Reorganization in the representation of face-race categories from 6 to 9 months of age: Behavioral and computational evidence. Vision Res 2020; 179:34-41. [PMID: 33285348 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2020.11.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2020] [Revised: 10/31/2020] [Accepted: 11/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Prior research has reported developmental change in how infants represent categories of other-race faces (Developmental Science 19 (2016) 362-371). In particular, Caucasian 6-month-olds were shown to represent African versus Asian face categories, whereas Caucasian 9 month-olds represented different classes of other-race faces in one category, inclusive of African and Asian faces but exclusive of Caucasian faces. The current investigation sought to provide stronger evidence that is convergent with these findings by asking whether infants will generalize looking-time responsiveness from one to another other-race category. In Experiment 1, an experimental group of Caucasian 6-month-olds was familiarized with African (or Asian) faces and then given a novel category preference test with an Asian (or African) face versus a Caucasian face, while a control group of Caucasian 6-month-olds viewed the test faces without prior familiarization. Infants in the experimental group divided attention between the test faces and infants in the control group did not manifest a spontaneous preference. Experiment 2 used the same procedure, but was conducted with Caucasian 9-month-olds. Infants in the experimental group displayed a robust preference for Caucasian faces when considered against the finding that infants in the control group displayed a spontaneous preference for other-race faces. The results offer confirmation that between 6 and 9 months, infants transition to representing own-race versus other-race face categories, with the latter inclusive of multiple other-race face classes with clear perceptual differences. Computational modeling of infant responding suggests that the developmental change is rooted in the statistics of experience with majority versus minority group faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, United States.
| | - Benjamin J Balas
- Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, United States
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, Universite Grenoble Alpes, France
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18
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Hwang HG, Debnath R, Meyer M, Salo VC, Fox NA, Woodward A. Neighborhood racial demographics predict infants' neural responses to people of different races. Dev Sci 2020; 24:e13070. [PMID: 33277794 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13070] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2020] [Revised: 11/28/2020] [Accepted: 11/29/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Early in life, greater exposure to diverse people can change the tendency to prefer one's own social group. For instance, infants from racially diverse environments show less preference for their own-race (ingroup) over other-race (outgroup) faces than infants from racially homogeneous environments. Yet how social environment changes ingroup versus outgroup demarcation in infancy remains unclear. A commonly held assumption is that early emerging ingroup preference is based on an affective process: feeling more comfortable with familiar ingroup than unfamiliar outgroup members. However, other processes may also underlie ingroup preference: Infants may attend more to ingroup than outgroup members and/or mirror the actions of ingroup over outgroup individuals. By aggregating 7- to 12-month-old infants' electroencephalography (EEG) activity across three studies, we disambiguate these different processes in the EEG oscillations of preverbal infants according to social environment. White infants from more racially diverse neighborhoods exhibited greater frontal theta oscillation (an index of top-down attention) and more mu rhythm desynchronization (an index of motor system activation and potentially neural mirroring) to racial outgroup individuals than White infants from less racially diverse neighborhoods. Neighborhood racial demographics did not relate to White infants' frontal alpha asymmetry (a measure of approach-withdrawal motivation) toward racial outgroup individuals. Racial minority infants showed no effects of neighborhood racial demographics in their neural responses to racial outgroup individuals. These results indicate that neural mechanisms that may underlie social bias and prejudices are related to neighborhood racial demographics in the first year of life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hyesung G Hwang
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Ranjan Debnath
- Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland. College Park, MD, USA.,Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Marlene Meyer
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Virginia C Salo
- Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland. College Park, MD, USA.,Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University. Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Nathan A Fox
- Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland. College Park, MD, USA
| | - Amanda Woodward
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
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19
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Singh L, Tan ARY, Lee K, Quinn PC. Sensitivity to race in language comprehension in monolingual and bilingual infants. J Exp Child Psychol 2020; 199:104933. [PMID: 32731045 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104933] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2020] [Revised: 06/17/2020] [Accepted: 06/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Past studies suggest that monolingual and bilingual infants respond differently to race information in face discrimination and social learning tasks. In particular, bilingual infants have been shown to respond more similarly to own- and other-race individuals, in contrast to monolingual infants, who respond preferentially to own-race individuals. In the current study, we investigated monolingual and bilingual sensitivity to speaker race in spoken word recognition. Two-year-old infants were presented with spoken words in association with visual targets. Words were presented in association with own- or other-race actors and were either correctly pronounced or mispronounced. Measuring speech-responsive eye movements to visual targets, we analyzed fixation to visual targets for correct and mispronounced words in relation to speaker race for each group. When presented with own-race speakers, both monolingual and bilingual infants associated correctly pronounced labels, but not mispronounced labels, with visual targets. When presented with other-race speakers, bilingual infants responded similarly. In contrast, monolingual infants did not fixate visual targets regardless of whether words were correctly pronounced or mispronounced by an other-race speaker. Results are discussed in terms of the sensitivities of bilingual and monolingual infants to novelty, learned associations between race and language, and prior social experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore.
| | - Annabel R Y Tan
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Kang Lee
- Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada
| | - Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA.
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20
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Quinn PC, Lee K, Pascalis O. Beyond perceptual development: Infant responding to social categories. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2020; 58:35-61. [PMID: 32169198 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2020.01.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
A body of research is reviewed that has investigated how infants respond to social category information in faces based on differential experience. Whereas some aspects of behavioral performance (visual preference, discrimination, and scanning) are consistent with traditional models of perceptual development (induction, maintenance, and attunement), other aspects (category formation, association with valence, and selective learning) suggest the need for an account that links perceptual with social-emotional processing. We also consider how responding to social categories in infancy may anticipate subsequent responding to these categories in childhood and adulthood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul C Quinn
- University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States.
| | - Kang Lee
- University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
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21
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Abstract
Children need to build trust in their primary caregivers or significant others, as well as people who are unrelated to them, including those who belong to different social groups. The present chapter focuses on children's trust in unfamiliar individuals. How do they determine who to trust? Does putting trust in another person operate differently depending on the specific issue at hand? To address these questions, we differentiate between two forms of trust: children's trust in others' epistemic states to learn from others (epistemic trust) and trusting others for social support and reassurance (social trust), for example, when to expect that interaction partners will be truthful and keep promises. We first review the literature on epistemic trust to show that young children seem to value others' accuracy and competence when learning from them, even when these individuals are from different linguistic or racial groups than their own. We then present findings on social trust suggesting that young children trust those who are well-meaning and who keep their promises. Finally, we raise the question of whether there are environmental influences on the interaction of both epistemic and social trust with intergroup factors such as race, and we propose that research with infants will be useful to better illuminate the developmental roots of human trust.
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22
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Brooks R, Singleton JL, Meltzoff AN. Enhanced gaze-following behavior in Deaf infants of Deaf parents. Dev Sci 2019; 23:e12900. [PMID: 31486168 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12900] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2019] [Revised: 08/04/2019] [Accepted: 08/30/2019] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
Gaze following plays a role in parent-infant communication and is a key mechanism by which infants acquire information about the world from social input. Gaze following in Deaf infants has been understudied. Twelve Deaf infants of Deaf parents (DoD) who had native exposure to American Sign Language (ASL) were gender-matched and age-matched (±7 days) to 60 spoken-language hearing control infants. Results showed that the DoD infants had significantly higher gaze-following scores than the hearing infants. We hypothesize that in the absence of auditory input, and with support from ASL-fluent Deaf parents, infants become attuned to visual-communicative signals from other people, which engenders increased gaze following. These findings underscore the need to revise the 'deficit model' of deafness. Deaf infants immersed in natural sign language from birth are better at understanding the signals and identifying the referential meaning of adults' gaze behavior compared to hearing infants not exposed to sign language. Broader implications for theories of social-cognitive development are discussed. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/QXCDK_CUmAI.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rechele Brooks
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
| | - Jenny L Singleton
- Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
| | - Andrew N Meltzoff
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
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23
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24
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Simpson EA, Maylott SE, Mitsven SG, Zeng G, Jakobsen KV. Face detection in 2- to 6-month-old infants is influenced by gaze direction and species. Dev Sci 2019; 23:e12902. [PMID: 31505079 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12902] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2018] [Revised: 07/10/2019] [Accepted: 08/30/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Humans detect faces efficiently from a young age. Face detection is critical for infants to identify and learn from relevant social stimuli in their environments. Faces with eye contact are an especially salient stimulus, and attention to the eyes in infancy is linked to the emergence of later sociality. Despite the importance of both of these early social skills-attending to faces and attending to the eyes-surprisingly little is known about how they interact. We used eye tracking to explore whether eye contact influences infants' face detection. Longitudinally, we examined 2-, 4-, and 6-month-olds' (N = 65) visual scanning of complex image arrays with human and animal faces varying in eye contact and head orientation. Across all ages, infants displayed superior detection of faces with eye contact; however, this effect varied as a function of species and head orientation. Infants were more attentive to human than animal faces and were more sensitive to eye and head orientation for human faces compared to animal faces. Unexpectedly, human faces with both averted heads and eyes received the most attention. This pattern may reflect the early emergence of gaze following-the ability to look where another individual looks-which begins to develop around this age. Infants may be especially interested in averted gaze faces, providing early scaffolding for joint attention. This study represents the first investigation to document infants' attention patterns to faces systematically varying in their attentional states. Together, these findings suggest that infants develop early, specialized functional conspecific face detection.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sarah E Maylott
- Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
| | | | - Guangyu Zeng
- Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
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25
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Wu R. Learning What to Learn Across the Life Span: From Objects to Real-World Skills. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2019. [DOI: 10.1177/0963721419847994] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
One of the most difficult and important problems that all learners face across the life span is learning what to learn. Understanding what to learn is difficult when both relevant and irrelevant information compete for attention. In these situations, the learner can rely on cues in the environment, as well as prior knowledge. However, these sources of information sometimes conflict, and the learner has to prioritize some sources over others. Determining what to learn is important because learning relevant information helps the learner achieve goals, whereas learning irrelevant information can waste time and energy. A new theoretical approach posits that adaptation is relevant for all age groups because the environment is dynamic, suggesting that learning what to learn is a problem relevant across the life span instead of only during infancy and childhood. In this article, I review new research demonstrating the importance and ways of learning what to learn across the life span, from objects to real-world skills, before highlighting some unresolved issues for future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel Wu
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside
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26
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Singh L, Quinn PC, Xiao NG, Lee K. Monolingual but not bilingual infants demonstrate racial bias in social cue use. Dev Sci 2019; 22:e12809. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12809] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2018] [Revised: 02/01/2019] [Accepted: 02/03/2019] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Leher Singh
- Department of Psychology National University of Singapore Singapore
| | - Paul C. Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences University of Delaware Newark Delaware
| | - Naiqi G. Xiao
- Department of Psychology Princeton University Princeton New Jersey
| | - Kang Lee
- Department of Psychology University of Toronto Toronto ON Canada
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27
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Quinn PC, Lee K, Pascalis O. Face Processing in Infancy and Beyond: The Case of Social Categories. Annu Rev Psychol 2019; 70:165-189. [DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102753] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Prior reviews of infant face processing have emphasized how infants respond to faces in general. This review highlights how infants come to respond differentially to social categories of faces based on differential experience, with a focus on race and gender. We examine six different behaviors: preference, recognition, scanning, category formation, association with emotion, and selective learning. Although some aspects of infant responding to face race and gender may be accounted for by traditional models of perceptual development, other aspects suggest the need for a broader model that links perceptual development with social and emotional development. We also consider how responding to face race and gender in infancy may presage responding to these categories beyond infancy and discuss how social biases favoring own-race and female faces are formed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul C. Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA
| | - Kang Lee
- Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5R 2X2, Canada
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, Université Grenoble Alpes, 38400 Saint-Martin-d'Hères, France
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28
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Simpson EA, Paukner A, Pedersen EJ, Ferrari PF, Parr LA. Visual preferences for direct-gaze faces in infant macaques (Macaca mulatta) with limited face exposure. Dev Psychobiol 2018; 61:228-238. [PMID: 30378109 DOI: 10.1002/dev.21797] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2018] [Revised: 09/06/2018] [Accepted: 09/24/2018] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
Abstract
From birth, human and nonhuman primates attend more to faces with direct gaze compared with averted gaze, and previous studies report that attention to the eyes is linked to the emergence of later social skills. Here, we explored whether early experiences influence attraction to eye contact in infant macaques by examining their attention to face pairs varying in their gaze direction across the first 13 weeks of life. Infants raised by human caretakers had limited conspecific interactions (nursery-reared; N = 16) and were compared to infants raised in rich social environments (mother-reared; N = 20). Both groups looked longer to faces and the eyes of direct compared to averted-gaze faces. Looking to all faces and eyes also increased with age. Nursery-reared infants did not display age-associated increases in attention to direct-gaze faces specifically, suggesting that, while there may be an initial preference for direct-gaze faces from birth, social experiences may support its early development.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Annika Paukner
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.,Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
| | - Eric J Pedersen
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado
| | - Pier F Ferrari
- Institut des Sciences, Cognitives-Marc Jeannerod, Université Claude Bernard, Lyon, France
| | - Lisa A Parr
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.,Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
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29
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Bayet L, Zinszer B, Pruitt Z, Aslin RN, Wu R. Dynamics of neural representations when searching for exemplars and categories of human and non-human faces. Sci Rep 2018; 8:13277. [PMID: 30185919 PMCID: PMC6125483 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-31526-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2017] [Accepted: 08/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Face perception abilities in humans exhibit a marked expertise in distinguishing individual human faces at the expense of individual faces from other species (the other-species effect). In particular, one behavioural effect of such specialization is that human adults search for and find categories of non-human faces faster and more accurately than a specific non-human face, and vice versa for human faces. However, a recent visual search study showed that neural responses (event-related potentials, ERPs) were identical when finding either a non-human or human face. We used time-resolved multivariate pattern analysis of the EEG data from that study to investigate the dynamics of neural representations during a visual search for own-species (human) or other-species (non-human ape) faces, with greater sensitivity than traditional ERP analyses. The location of each target (i.e., right or left) could be decoded from the EEG, with similar accuracy for human and non-human faces. However, the neural patterns associated with searching for an exemplar versus a category target differed for human faces compared to non-human faces: Exemplar representations could be more reliably distinguished from category representations for human than non-human faces. These findings suggest that the other-species effect modulates the nature of representations, but preserves the attentional selection of target items based on these representations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laurie Bayet
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.
- Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.
| | - Benjamin Zinszer
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA
| | - Zoe Pruitt
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA
| | | | - Rachel Wu
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA
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30
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Markant J, Scott LS. Attention and Perceptual Learning Interact in the Development of the Other-Race Effect. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2018. [DOI: 10.1177/0963721418769884] [Citation(s) in RCA: 47] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Face-processing abilities are biased such that some faces are differentiated, recognized, and identified more readily than others. Across the first year of life, experience with faces shapes the development of face-processing biases. However, the developmental trajectory of face processing and important contributing factors are not well understood. In order to better characterize the development of face processing during infancy, we propose a model involving repeated interactions between attention and perceptual learning. This interactive framework predicts that bottom-up attention orienting to faces leads to rapid perceptual learning about frequently experienced faces, top-down selective-attention biases for familiar faces, and increasingly refined neural representations across the first year of life.
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31
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Doebel S, Munakata Y. Group Influences on Engaging Self-Control: Children Delay Gratification and Value It More When Their In-Group Delays and Their Out-Group Doesn't. Psychol Sci 2018; 29:738-748. [PMID: 29625014 DOI: 10.1177/0956797617747367] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Self-control emerges in a rich sociocultural context. Do group norms around self-control influence the degree to which children use it? We tested this possibility by assigning 3- to 5-year-old children to a group and manipulating their beliefs about in-group and out-group behavior on the classic marshmallow task. Across two experiments, children waited longer for two marshmallows when they believed that their in-group waited and their out-group did not, compared with children who believed that their in-group did not wait and their out-group did. Group behavior influenced children to wait more, not less, as indicated by comparisons with children in a control condition who were assigned to a group but received no information about either groups' delay behavior (Experiment 1). Children also subsequently valued delaying gratification more if their in-group waited and their out-group did not (Experiment 2). Childhood self-control behavior and related developmental outcomes may be shaped by group norms around self-control, which may be an optimal target for interventions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabine Doebel
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder
| | - Yuko Munakata
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder
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32
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Liberman Z, Kinzler KD, Woodward AL. The early social significance of shared ritual actions. Cognition 2018; 171:42-51. [PMID: 29107887 PMCID: PMC5818307 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.10.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2017] [Revised: 10/20/2017] [Accepted: 10/23/2017] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
Many rituals are socially stipulated such that engaging in a group's rituals can fundamentally signal membership in that group. Here, we asked whether infants infer information about people's social affiliation based on whether those people perform the same ritualistic action versus different actions. We presented 16-month-old infants with two people who used the same object to achieve the same goal: turning on a light. In a first study, the actions that the actors used to turn on the light had key properties of ritual: they were not causally necessary to reach the overall goal, and there were no features of the situation that required doing the particular actions. We varied whether the two actors performed the same action or performed different actions to turn on the light. Infants expected people who used the same ritualistic action to be more likely to affiliate than people who used different actions. A second study indicated that these results were not due to perceptual similarity: when the differences in the actors' actions were not marked by properties of ritual, but were instead due to situational constraints, infants expected the actors to affiliate. Thus, infants understand the social significance of people engaging in common, potentially ritualistic actions, and expect these actions to provide information about third-party social relationships.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zoe Liberman
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, United States.
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33
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Qian MK, Quinn PC, Heyman GD, Pascalis O, Fu G, Lee K. A Long-Term Effect of Perceptual Individuation Training on Reducing Implicit Racial Bias in Preschool Children. Child Dev 2017; 90:e290-e305. [PMID: 29023649 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12971] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
This study tracked the long-term effect of perceptual individuation training on reducing 5-year-old Chinese children's (N = 95, Mage = 5.64 years) implicit pro-Asian/anti-Black racial bias. Initial training to individuate other-race Black faces, followed by supplementary training occurring 1 week later, resulted in a long-term reduction of pro-Asian/anti-Black bias (70 days). In contrast, training Chinese children to recognize White or Asian faces had no effect on pro-Asian/anti-Black bias. Theoretically, the finding that individuation training can have a long-term effect on reducing implicit racial bias in preschoolers suggests that a developmentally early causal linkage between perceptual and social processing of faces is not a transitory phenomenon. Practically, the data point to an effective intervention method for reducing implicit racism in young children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miao K Qian
- Hangzhou Normal University.,University of Toronto
| | | | - Gail D Heyman
- University of California, San Diego.,Zhejiang Normal University
| | | | | | - Kang Lee
- University of Toronto.,Zhejiang Normal University
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34
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Lee K, Quinn PC, Pascalis O. Face race processing and racial bias in early development: A perceptual-social linkage. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2017; 26:256-262. [PMID: 28751824 DOI: 10.1177/0963721417690276] [Citation(s) in RCA: 47] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Infants have asymmetrical exposure to different types of faces (e.g., more human than other-species, more female than male, and more own-race than other-race). What are the developmental consequences of such experiential asymmetry? Here we review recent advances in research on the development of cross-race face processing. The evidence suggests that greater exposure to own- than other-race faces in infancy leads to developmentally early perceptual differences in visual preference, recognition, category formation, and scanning of own- and other-race faces. Further, such perceptual differences in infancy may be associated with the emergence of implicit racial bias, consistent with a Perceptual-Social Linkage Hypothesis. Current and future work derived from this hypothesis may lay an important empirical foundation for the development of intervention programs to combat the early occurrence of implicit racial bias.
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