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Related Concept Videos

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
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Infants' top-down perceptual modulation is specific to own-race faces.

Naiqi G Xiao1, Hila Ghersin2, Natasha D Dombrowski2

  • 1Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada; Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|March 5, 2024
PubMed
Summary

Infants show top-down perception for familiar own-race faces but not for other-race faces. This suggests experience shapes early perceptual specialization and cognitive modulation in infants.

Keywords:
Eye-trackingInfantsOther-race effectPerceptionPredictionTop-down perception

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Infant Perception

Background:

  • Higher-level cognitive systems influence infant perceptual processing (top-down perceptual modulation).
  • Understanding the role of top-down processes in infant perceptual development is crucial.
  • Research is needed to link top-down modulation to perceptual specialization in infancy.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate infants' top-down perception of own-race versus other-race faces.
  • To determine if top-down modulation is associated with the development of perceptual specialization.
  • To explore the experience-based specificity of top-down perceptual modulation in infants.

Main Methods:

  • Infants learned associations between sounds and faces (own-race vs. other-race groups).
  • Face perception was tested under varying perceptual difficulty (presentation duration).
  • Top-down perception was indexed by comparing responses to predictive versus irrelevant sounds.

Main Results:

  • Infants demonstrated significant top-down face perception for own-race faces.
  • No evidence of top-down modulation was found for other-race faces.
  • Differences in associative learning between face-race groups were ruled out.

Conclusions:

  • Top-down perceptual modulation in infants appears to be experience-based and specific.
  • Familiar perceptual contexts (own-race faces) show more effective top-down modulation.
  • This study provides insights into mechanisms of perceptual development and infant cognition.