Development Of Recognition Of Own- And Other-race Faces By Chinese Infants: Insights From Eye-movenments

Compared with other-race faces, Individuals commonly recognize own-race faces better and more quickly; This phenomenon is named other-race effect(ORE). Recent infant studies have revealed that ORE is originated in infancy, Most researchers agree that this effect results from differential experience with own-race faces and other-race faces. Thus, the present study combined with eye-movement technology and we use the familiarization–novelty preference(VFNP) paradigm to investigated the difference of eye-movement patterns in recognize ownand other-race(Caucasian, African) faces in 6- 9 months old Chinese infants. The results were as follows.In behavior results, During the Familiarization trials, infants showed a significant decrease in looking at own-race Asian faces and other-race African faces; During the test trials, infants are able to recognize our own-race Asian faces, but not other-race faces.The eye-tracking results revealed that:1) During the Familiarization trials, the infants’ scanning on own-race faces’ nose showed difference with other-race faces, and more importantly, Comparison with different race, infant showed the difference: Under the condition of Asian faces and Caucasian faces, both 6-months and 9-months infants fixated more on own-race Asian faces’ nose than Caucasian faces’ nose. Under the condition of Asian faces and African faces, over the age range tested, there was a gradual decrement in fixation on the nose of other-race African faces and a maintenance of fixation on the nose of own-race Asian face.2) Form the dynamically displayed faces in the familiarization trials, to the static pictures in the test trials, infants showed the consistency in face scanning, as the percentage of time spent looking at the area of eye, nose, and mouth between two trials showed the Significant correlation.3) During the test trials, the results revealed that, The scanning process of the face is related to the performance of the face recognition, and existed ethnic difference. The processing of the faces’ nose region is only significantly related to the novelty preference of own-race Asian faces.