Association Learning with Own‐ and Other‐race Faces in three‐ and six‐month old infants – A longitudinal study |
| |
| Authors: | Ina Fassbender Arnold Lohaus Hoben Thomas Manuel Teubert Marc Vierhaus Sibylle M. Spangler Thorsten Kolling Claudia Goertz Frauke Graf Bettina Lamm Helene Gudi Claudia Freitag Heidi Keller Monika Knopf Gudrun Schwarzer |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. University of Bielefeld, , Germany;2. Pennsylvania State University, , University Park, USA;3. University of Giessen, , Germany;4. University of Frankfurt, , Germany;5. University of Osnabrück, , Germany |
| |
| Abstract: | This longitudinal study assessed 133 Caucasian German infants at 3 and 6 months of age to investigate the influence of own‐race and other‐race faces as visual stimuli on association learning in the visual expectation paradigm (VExP). The study is related to the findings on the other‐race‐effect (ORE) which is said to emerge at 6 months of age. Caucasian faces were used as stimuli of a familiar ethnic category, whereas African faces were used as stimuli of an unfamiliar ethnic category. There was no significant difference between the two stimulus classes in infants' reaction time (RT) to stimulus shifts at 3 months. At 6 months of age, infants' RT decreased significantly in the Caucasian faces condition but not in the African faces condition. These results indicate that the processing of other‐race versus own‐race faces by the age of 6 months, which is also the relevant age for the onset of the ORE, has an important influence on the performance on the VExP. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
| |
| Keywords: | association learning own‐ and other‐race face processing visual expectation paradigm |
|
|
