Monolingual but not bilingual infants demonstrate racial bias in social cue use

Abstract

Bilingualism exerts early and pervasive effects on cognition, observable in infancy.Thus far, investigations of infant bilingual cognition have focused on sensitivity to visual memory, executive function, and linguistic sensitivity. Much less research has focused on how bilingualism impacts processing of social cues. The present study sought to investigate whether bilingualism modulates the expression of one aspect of social processing: early racial bias. Using a gaze-following paradigm, we investigated whether 18-to 20-month-old monolingual and bilingual infants favored their own race. Results demonstrated that monolingual infants favored their own race in following a model whose direction of gaze signaled an event. In contrast, bilingual infants demonstrated race-neutral gaze-following patterns, relying more heavily on the reliability of the behavior of the model over race. Findings suggest that bilingualism may have protective effects against the early emergence of racial bias. K E Y W O R D Sbilingualism, infancy, racial bias

The development of gaze following in monolingual and bilingual infants: A multi‐laboratory study

“…However, the present results are compatible with a recent comparison of bilingual and monolingual infants’ gaze‐following behavior. Singh, Quinn, Xiao, and Lee (2019) demonstrated similarity in basic gaze‐following behavior in monolingual and bilingual groups, using a similar paradigm at 18 months. Similarly, Schonberg, Sandhofer, Tsang, and Johnson (2014) reported that there were no differences between monolingual and bilingual 3‐ and 6‐month‐olds looking patterns when viewing faces, objects, and complex scenes.…”

Evidence for an Early Novelty Orientation in Bilingual Learners

“…In a social learning task in which 18‐month‐olds were cued to follow the gaze of own‐ and other‐race adults, monolingual infants exhibited an own‐race bias, favoring models of their own race over other‐race models. In contrast, bilingual infants demonstrated equal treatment of own‐ and other‐race models, although neither group had encountered the other race involved (Singh, Quinn, Xiao, & Lee, 2019).…”

“…In more direct measures of race bias, 3‐ to 4‐year‐old bilingual children demonstrated less implicit racial bias than monolingual children of the same age, although neither group had any exposure to the other race involved (Singh, Quinn, Qian, & Lee, 2020). As with linguistic tasks, where bilingual infants are sensitive to sounds they have never encountered (e.g., Singh, 2018; Singh et al, 2017), bilingual openness extends to social groups never before encountered (Singh et al, 2019; Singh, Quinn, et al, 2020; Singh, Tan, et al, 2020). The precise links among bilingual exploratory behaviors, linguistic perception, and social openness remain to be determined through further empirical study.…”

“…Although empirical evidence supports perceptual flexibility and a novelty orientation in bilingual infants, the nature of the relationship among a novelty orientation, perceptual flexibility, and bilingual experience merits further investigation. While increased bilingual openness to novelty is evident in the domains of language (Bosch & Sebastián‐Gallés, 1997; Petitto et al, 2012; Singh, 2018; Singh et al, 2017; Singh & Tan, 2021), social learning (Singh et al, 2019; Singh, Quinn, et al, 2020; Singh, Tan, et al, 2020), and visual memory (D'Souza et al, 2020; Kalashnikova et al, 2020; Sebastián‐Gallés et al, 2012; Singh et al, 2015), it remains to be seen whether a novelty orientation forms the substrate from which perceptual flexibility emerges. Evidence for cross‐task transfer (e.g., associations between attentional shifting between familiar/novel displays and nonnative speech discrimination/social openness) in bilingual infants would address this question.…”

The development of gaze following in monolingual and bilingual infants: A multi-lab study

“…However, the present results are compatible with a recent comparison of bilingual and monolingual infants' gaze-following behavior. Singh, Quinn, Xiao, and Lee (2019) demonstrated similarity in basic gaze-following behavior in monolingual and bilingual groups, using a similar paradigm at 18 months. Similarly, Schonberg, Sandhofer, Tsang, and Johnson (2014) reported that there were no differences between monolingual and bilingual 3-and 6-month-olds looking patterns when viewing faces, objects and complex scenes.…”