Can language modulate perceptual narrowing for faces? Other-race face recognition in infants is modulated by language experience

Abstract

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.

Impact of language familiarity on abstract pattern recognition in 9- to 12-month-old infants

“…However, if they have similar language-processing mechanisms to adults from infancy, it would be interesting in future studies to add oculometric or pupil measurements to confirm or not whether, in the case of abstract pattern memorization, similar mechanisms could justify our behavioral observations. Furthermore, contrary to our findings, in which native language does not seem to hinder the recognition of unfamiliar abstract patterns, Clerc et al (2022) have shown that the presence of a native language hinders the recognition of unfamiliar faces. Infants are initially able to recognize individuals from any type of own-race and other-race faces.…”

“…Our sample size was based on the study by Hillairet de Boisferon et al (2021), Experiment 2, and Clerc et al (2022) where they tested about forty 12-month-olds in a VPC. All participants were healthy full-term infants raised in monolingual French environment, recruited via their parents, at the maternity ward of the Grenoble University Hospital.…”

Older infants' social learning behavior under uncertainty is modulated by the interaction of face and speech processing

“…The present study provides further evidence of strong interactions between face and speech processing during early child development. Previous studies have already demonstrated that face and speech processing specialize at a similar time and that they interact with each other (Clerc et al., 2022; Hillairet de Boisferon et al., 2021; Krasotkina et al., 2021). However, our study shows for the first time that those interactions also influence the social learning behavior in further child development.…”

“…Finally, we used videos of talking faces instead of static pictures as stimuli, a setup closer to infants' everyday life. In contrast, previous studies often used static pictures (e.g., Clerc et al, 2022) instead of videos.…”

Learning linguistic diversity: Listeners have race-based linguistic expectations, but only for phonological variation.

“…It would be worthwhile to examine how race–language associations are learned earlier in life from a developmental perspective. Based on the influence of speaker race on language comprehension (Singh et al, 2020), word processing (Weatherhead & White, 2018), and language-oriented face recognition (Clerc et al, 2022), it is possible that a younger population may show a similar pattern of learning in a study like the present.…”