Department of Developmental Psychology, Giessen University, Germany.
Potsdam University, Germany.
Infant Behav Dev. 2021 Feb;62:101502. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101502. Epub 2020 Nov 20.
Perceptual narrowing in the domain of face perception typically begins to reduce infants' sensitivity to differences distinguishing other-race faces from approximately 6 months of age. The present study investigated whether it is possible to re-sensitize Caucasian 12-month-old infants to other-race Asian faces through statistical learning by familiarizing them with different statistical distributions of these faces. The familiarization faces were created by generating a morphed continuum from one Asian face identity to another. In the unimodal condition, infants were familiarized with a frequency distribution wherein they saw the midpoint face of the morphed continuum the most frequently. In the bimodal condition, infants were familiarized with a frequency distribution wherein they saw faces closer to the endpoints of the morphed continuum the most frequently. After familiarization, infants were tested on their discrimination of the two original Asian faces. The infants' looking times during the test indicated that infants in the bimodal condition could discriminate between the two faces, while infants in the unimodal condition could not. These findings therefore suggest that 12-month-old Caucasian infants could be re-sensitized to Asian faces by familiarizing them with a bimodal frequency distribution of such faces.
面孔知觉领域的知觉狭窄通常始于大约 6 个月大时，降低婴儿对其他种族面孔与自身种族面孔差异的敏感性。本研究通过使婴儿熟悉这些面孔的不同统计分布，来探究是否可以通过统计学习使白人 12 个月大的婴儿重新对亚洲面孔产生敏感性。熟悉的面孔是通过从一个亚洲面孔身份到另一个身份生成一个连续的变形来创建的。在单峰条件下，婴儿熟悉的是一种频率分布，即他们最常看到变形连续体的中点面孔。在双峰条件下，婴儿熟悉的是一种频率分布，即他们最常看到更接近变形连续体端点的面孔。熟悉后，婴儿在测试中对两个原始亚洲面孔进行了辨别。测试期间婴儿的注视时间表明，双峰条件下的婴儿可以辨别这两个面孔，而单峰条件下的婴儿则不能。因此，这些发现表明，通过使婴儿熟悉亚洲面孔的双峰频率分布，可以使 12 个月大的白人婴儿重新对亚洲面孔产生敏感性。
