Attention during Visual Preference Tasks: Relation to Caregiving and Face Recognition

Abstract

This research examined how caregiver experience (female primary caregiver or distributed caregiving with mom and dad) influenced 10‐, 14‐, and 16‐month‐olds’ visual preferences and attention toward internal facial features of female–male face pairs, and how these behaviors related to novelty preferences in a face recognition task and speed and accuracy on a visual search task. In the visual preference task, infants visually preferred male faces, regardless of caregiver experience. Despite similarities in visual preferences, infants’ attention toward females and males’ internal facial features was related for infants with distributed caregiving only. Infants’ performance across face processing tasks most often correlated for those with female primary caregivers. Results further our understanding of how infants with female primary caregivers display specialized processing of female faces, and how infants with distributed caregiving show similarities in their attention to female and male facial features.

Asymmetrical responding to male versus female other‐race categories in 9‐ to 12‐month‐old infants

“…Overall, these findings replicate previous results suggesting that the female face preference declines towards the end of the first year of life (e.g. Juvrud et al, 2019; Liu, Xiao, Quinn, et al, 2015; Tham et al, 2015), and more generally that gender biases in infants fail to extend to other‐race faces (e.g. Liu, Xiao, Quinn, et al, 2015; Liu, Xiao, Xiao, et al, 2015; Quinn et al, 2008; for a meta‐analysis on infant face preference in relation to race and gender, see Marquis & Sugden, 2019).…”

“…Predictions regarding visual biases in 12‐month‐old infants are however more uncertain. Previous findings of preference for male own‐race faces by that age (Juvrud et al, 2019) could suggest the emergence of a similar preference for male other‐race faces, whereas findings with 4‐, 6‐ and 9‐month‐old infants indicate that the gender preference for female does not extend to other‐race faces (Liu, Xiao, Quinn, et al, 2015; Quinn et al, 2008).…”

“…9‐, and 10‐month‐olds, Liu, Xiao, Quinn, et al, 2015; Tham et al, 2015; Younger & Fearing, 1999) or even exhibit preference for male faces (i.e. 10‐, 14‐ and 16‐month‐olds, Juvrud et al, 2019). These visual biases may have interfered with the preference for novel male faces after familiarization with female faces and bolstered the preference for novel female faces after familiarization with male faces.…”

Infants’ Selective Visual Attention Is Dependent on Maternal Affect and Emotional Context

“…The kinds of visual experiences that infants have with their mothers during early infancy can shape attentional mechanisms and abilities, such as visual preferences for emotional face expressions ( Striano et al, 2002 ), face emotion perception ( Gredebäck et al, 2012 ), perceptual narrowing of faces ( Rennels et al, 2017 ), and allocation of attention toward internal features of a face ( Juvrud et al, 2019 ). Increased exposure to threating facial emotions has been shown to result in attention bias to threat cues and changes in neurocognitive systems underlying attention ( Mogg et al, 1994 ; Pollak et al, 1998 ; Pine et al, 2005 ; Romens and Pollak, 2012 ).…”

Asymmetric visual representation of sex from human body shape

“…For example, in one influential study, infants aged 3 to 4 months looked longer at female faces when they were presented paired together with male faces (Quinn et al, 2002). Importantly, this preference depended on the participants having females as primary caregivers; the pattern was reversed in a sample of infants raised primarily by male caregivers (see also Quinn et al, 2019;Ramsey et al, 2005;Rennels et al, 2017;Juvrud et al, 2019). Related phenomena are revealed in neural measures; for example, in ERP recordings with 7-month-old infants, differential cortical activity was evoked by primed vs novel female faces, but not for male faces (Righi et al, 2014).…”