Experience prevents the emergence of the other race effect during infancy

Abstract

Experience plays a crucial role in the development of the face processing system. Six-month-olds discriminate individual faces from their own and other races. By 9 months, this ability to process other-race faces is typically lost, due to minimal experience with other-race faces, and vast exposure to own-race faces. In this study,we demonstrate that exposing Caucasian infants to Chinese faces through a picture book at home from 6 and 9 months allows Caucasian infants to maintain the ability to discriminate Chinese faces at 9 months. Thus, the development of the processing of face race can be modified by training