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Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Development of the other-race effect during infancy: evidence toward universality?
David J Kelly1, Shaoying Liu, Kang Lee
1Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QB, UK. davidk@psy.gla.ac.uk
Abstract:
The other-race effect in face processing develops within the first year of life in Caucasian infants. It is currently unknown whether the developmental trajectory observed in Caucasian infants can be extended to other cultures. This is an important issue to investigate because recent findings from cross-cultural psychology have suggested that individuals from Eastern and Western backgrounds tend to perceive the world in fundamentally different ways. To this end, the current study investigated 3-, 6-, and 9-month-old Chinese infants' ability to discriminate faces within their own racial group and within two other racial groups (African and Caucasian). The 3-month-olds demonstrated recognition in all conditions, whereas the 6-month-olds recognized Chinese faces and displayed marginal recognition for Caucasian faces but did not recognize African faces. The 9-month-olds' recognition was limited to Chinese faces. This pattern of development is consistent with the perceptual narrowing hypothesis that our perceptual systems are shaped by experience to be optimally sensitive to stimuli most commonly encountered in one's unique cultural environment.
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