Caucasian Infants Scan Own- and Other-Race Faces Differently

Abstract

Young infants are known to prefer own-race faces to other race faces and recognize own-race faces better than other-race faces. However, it is entirely unclear as to whether infants also attend to different parts of own- and other-race faces differently, which may provide an important clue as to how and why the own-race face recognition advantage emerges so early. The present study used eye tracking methodology to investigate whether 6- to 10-month-old Caucasian infants (N = 37) have differential scanning patterns for dynamically displayed own- and other-race faces. We found that even though infants spent a similar amount of time looking at own- and other-race faces, with increased age, infants increasingly looked longer at the eyes of own-race faces and less at the mouths of own-race faces. These findings suggest experience-based tuning of the infant's face processing system to optimally process own-race faces that are different in physiognomy from other-race faces. In addition, the present results, taken together with recent own- and other-race eye tracking findings with infants and adults, provide strong support for an enculturation hypothesis that East Asians and Westerners may be socialized to scan faces differently due to each culture's conventions regarding mutual gaze during interpersonal communication.

Looking at faces from different angles: Europeans fixate different features in Asian and Caucasian faces

“…This finding fits well with our results showing that adults also fixated the eyes of own-race faces more frequently than the eyes of other-race faces. Wheeler et al (2011) also found face race effects for the mouth (similar to Goldinger, He, & Papesh, 2009), with infants fixating the mouth more in own-race faces than in other-race faces. Our results suggest that a face race effect only emerges when the overall amount of fixations dedicated to a distinct feature is sufficient.…”

“…Wheeler et al (2011) have found that 6-10 month old infants fixated the eyes of own-race faces more than the eyes of other-race faces and that this difference in fixation behavior increased with age. This finding fits well with our results showing that adults also fixated the eyes of own-race faces more frequently than the eyes of other-race faces.…”

“…Contrary to that, however, there are also studies reporting diverging fixation patterns for own-and other-race faces in Asian (Fu et al, 2012) as well as European (Goldinger, He, & Papesh, 2009) observers. The authors of these latter studies propose that such differences might arise due to the enculturation of particular visual strategies (Fu et al, 2012;Liu et al, 2011;Wheeler et al, 2011): As these culturally shaped strategies develop predominantly in interaction with own-race faces, they might not be used for other-race faces, resulting in differing viewing patterns for both face categories. Yet another line of evidence for differing scanning strategies argues that observers directly access the individuation level, i.e.…”

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder scan own-race faces differently from other-race faces

“…In typically developing individuals, eye gaze patterns associated with face processing have been shown to be different when scanning own-versus other-race faces in several studies (e.g., Blais et al, 2008;Kelly et al, 2011;Liu et al, 2010;Wheeler et al, 2011). For example, Westerners tend to focus on the eye regions, whereas Chinese observers tend to focus on the central part of faces (e.g., the nose region; Fu, Hu, Wang, Quinn, & Lee, 2012).…”

Developmental Trajectory of Audiovisual Speech Integration in Early Infancy. A Review of Studies Using the McGurk Paradigm

“…For face processing the behavioural data suggests some degree of specialisation already at 6-10 months of age (e.g. Wheeler et al, 2011), but the electrophysiological evidence indicates that the right hemisphere specialisation for faces does not emerge until 12 months of age (de Haan, Pascalis, & Johnson, 2002). For these reasons it perhaps becomes less surprising that the perceptual narrowing of speech sound contrasts for native language occurs around the same time as narrowing for human faces (but see Watson, Robbins, & Best, 2014).…”