Different Ethnicities and the Gaze of Infants

Abstract: Differential experience leads infants to have perceptual processing advantages for own- over other-race faces, but whether this experience has downstream consequences is unknown. Three experiments examined whether 7-month-olds (range = 5.9–8.5 months; N = 96) use gaze from own- versus other-race adults to anticipate events. 

When gaze predicted an event's occurrence with 100% reliability, 7-month-olds followed both adults equally; with 25% (chance) reliability, neither was followed. However, with 50% (uncertain) reliability, infants followed own- over other-race gaze. Differential face race experience may thus affect how infants use social cues from own- versus other-race adults for learning. Such findings suggest that infants integrate online statistical reliability information with prior knowledge of own versus other race to guide social interaction and learning. (Xiao et al., 2017)

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- Xiao, N. G., Wu, R., Quinn, P. C., Liu, S., Tummeltshammer, K. S., Kirkham, N. Z., Ge, L., Pascalis, O. & Lee, K. (2017). Infants Rely More on Gaze Cues From Own-Race Than Othr-Race Adults for Learning Under Uncertainty, link

- photograph via Design Mom