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Updated: Dec 30, 2025

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
Published on: May 15, 2019
Caucasian Infants' Attentional Orienting to Own- and Other-Race Faces
Jonathan E Prunty1, Kelsey C Jackson2, Jolie R Keemink1
1School of Psychology, Keynes College, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NP, UK.
Abstract:
Infants show preferential attention toward faces and detect faces embedded within complex naturalistic scenes. Newborn infants are insensitive to race, but rapidly develop differential processing of own- and other-race faces. In the present study, we investigated the development of attentional orienting toward own- and other-race faces embedded within naturalistic scenes. Infants aged six-, nine- and twelve-months did not show differences in the speed of orienting to own- and other race faces, but other-race faces held infants' visual attention for longer. We also found a clear developmental progression in attentional capture and holding, with older infants orienting to faces faster and fixating them for longer. Results are interpreted within the context of the two-process model of face processing.
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