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Infants Rely More on Gaze Cues From Own-Race Than Other-Race Adults for Learning Under Uncertainty

Naiqi G Xiao1,2, Rachel Wu3, Paul C Quinn4

  • 1University of Toronto.

Child Development
|April 12, 2017
PubMed

Insights

Seven-month-old infants use gaze cues from familiar-race adults more than unfamiliar-race adults when learning. This suggests early social learning is influenced by race-based experience.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Social Neuroscience
  • Infant Perception

Background:

  • Infants show perceptual advantages for own-race faces due to differential experience.
  • The downstream consequences of this experience on social cue utilization remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if 7-month-old infants use gaze cues from own- versus other-race adults to anticipate events.
  • To determine if differential face race experience influences how infants use social cues for learning.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted with 96 infants aged 5.9–8.5 months.
  • Infants' gaze following behavior was measured in response to gaze cues from own- and other-race adults under varying reliability conditions (100%, 25%, 50%).

Main Results:

  • Infants followed gaze equally when it was 100% reliable or 25% (chance) reliable.
  • Under 50% (uncertain) reliability, infants preferentially followed gaze from own-race adults over other-race adults.

Conclusions:

  • Differential face race experience impacts infants' use of social cues from own- versus other-race adults.
  • Infants integrate online statistical reliability with prior race-based knowledge to guide social interaction and learning.

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