幼儿面孔加工异族效应的眼动研究

本研究探究国内生活的幼儿在加工面孔时视觉策略上的异族效应。研究选取了在中国本地生活并且没有与异族个体有过直接接触的幼儿和成人, 完成一个学习和再认本族和异族(高加索白人)面孔的实验, 同时眼动仪记录了他们看面孔时的眼动数据。结果发现：国内生活的幼儿和成人在加工面孔时存在视觉策略上的异族效应, 即幼儿和成人均更多地看本族面孔的鼻子和嘴巴区域而更多看异族面孔的眼睛区域。此外, 相对于成人, 幼儿在加工面孔时, 更倾向于看面孔的眼睛部分, 进行局部加工。本研究结果在一定程度上支持了专家—— 新手理论, 对本族面孔更多的视觉经验将我们塑造成自身物种或种族的面孔加工专家, 从而对本族面孔更多地采取以鼻子为中心的整体化视觉加工策略。

An Eye-tracking Research on the Other Race Effect During Face Processing in Preschool Children

Processing faces is important for our adaptation in human society because perceiving others’ thoughts and emotions through their faces are necessary for social communication and cooperation. Exploration into this issue provides a better understanding of the role of experience in the formation of visual processing expertise and the origin and establishment of racial prejudice and stereotypes. In this field, there is an effect confirmed by many research studies: the Other Race Effect (ORE). That is, individuals generally recognize own-race faces more accurately and faster than other-race faces. The existing behavioral and neural imaging studies have provided a great deal of insights into ORE, yet little is known about how individuals visually scan own- and other-race faces. Eye-tracking is one of the ideal methodologies for exploring this problem because it allows for recording the fixation of various observers on various parts of the face in real time with relatively high temporal and spatial resolution There have been several recent studies on ORE that have used the eye-tracking methodology. However, there exists a marked difference between the findings. Caldera, Kelly and their colleagues found that although Caucasian and Chinese adults use differently scanning strategies (the eye centric strategy by Caucasians and the nose centric strategy by Chinese), their scanning strategies for both own- and other race faces were the same. However, Fu and his colleagues (2011) found that the Chinese adults’ scanning strategies used for own- and other race faces were different. It should be noted, participants used in the research studies of Caldera, Kelly and their colleagues, the Chinese participants are all studying abroad, they may have enough visual experience to affect their eye-movement model before they attend the experiments. In order to confirm Fu and his colleagues’ results, and explore preschool children’s face processing strategies for own and other race faces, we did a face-recognition research on native Chinese children aged from 4~7 years and native Chinese adults as controls. They had never had direct contact with other-race individuals. We first showed the participants a set of Chinese and Western Caucasian faces, instructing them to remember these "acquaintance". Then these photos will be mixed with other "no-acquaintance" photos in the following testing period. The participants should judge whether the photos were acquaintance one by one. We used a Tobii eye tracker to record the participants’ fixations on the faces. The present results showed that: (1) Chinese participants (no matter preschool children or adults) were more inclined to scan the nose and mouth region of Chinese faces than that of Caucasian faces, and more inclined to scan the eye region of Caucasian faces than that of Chinese faces; (2) Adults showed more holistic perceptual strategies (scanning the nose region of the faces) than preschool children. The results confirmed Fu et al’s finding and supported the expert-novice hypothesis.