Infants' ability to match dynamic phonetic and gender information in the face and voice

Six experiments tested young infants' sensitivity to vowel and gender information in dynamic faces and voices. Infants were presented with side-by-side displays of two faces articulating the vowels /a/ or /i/ in synchrony. The heard voice matched the gender of one face in some studies and the vowel of one face in other studies and, in some studies, vowel and gender were placed in conflict. Infants of age 4.5 months showed no evidence of matching face and voice on the basis of gender, but were able to ignore irrelevant gender information and match on the basis of the vowel. Robust evidence of the ability to match on the basis of gender was not evident until 8 months of age. This set of findings suggests that, when identical stimuli are used, gender matching does not emerge until a later age than does phonetic matching. Results are discussed in relation to key theories of intermodal development.