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Kawaguchi Y, Waller BM. Lorenz's classic 'baby schema': a useful biological concept? Proc Biol Sci 2024; 291:20240570. [PMID: 38889779 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0570] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2024] [Accepted: 05/13/2024] [Indexed: 06/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Konrad Lorenz introduced the concept of a 'baby schema', suggesting that infants have specific physical features, such as a relatively large head, large eyes and protruding cheeks, which function as an innate releaser to promote caretaking motivation from perceivers. Over the years, a large body of research has been conducted on the baby schema. However, there are two critical problems underpinning the current literature. First, the term 'baby schema' lacks consistency among researchers. Some researchers use the term baby schema to refer to infant stimuli (often faces) in comparison with adults (categorical usage), while others use the term to refer to the extent that features contribute to cuteness perception (spectrum usage). Second, cross-species continuity of the 'baby schema' has been assumed despite few empirical demonstrations. The evolutionary and comparative relevance of the concept is, therefore, debatable, and we cannot exclude the possibility that extreme sensitivity to the baby schema is a uniquely human trait. This article critically reviews the state of the existing literature and evaluates the significance of the baby schema from an evolutionary perspective.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuri Kawaguchi
- Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Interaction, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University , Nottingham NG1 4FQ, UK
| | - Bridget M Waller
- Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Interaction, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University , Nottingham NG1 4FQ, UK
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2
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Oxytocin attenuates racial categorization in 14-month-old infants. Infant Behav Dev 2023; 71:101824. [PMID: 36863244 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101824] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2022] [Revised: 02/11/2023] [Accepted: 02/12/2023] [Indexed: 03/04/2023]
Abstract
Intergroup bias - the preferential attitudes one holds towards one's social group - is a ubiquitous socio-cognitive phenomenon. In fact, studies show that already in the first months of life, infants manifest a preference for members of their own social group. This points to the possibility of inborn mechanisms involved in social group cognition. Here we assess the effect of a biological activation of infants' affiliative motivation on their social categorization capacity. In a first visit to the lab, mothers self-administered either Oxytocin (OT) or placebo (PL) via a nasal spray and then engaged in a face-to-face interaction with their 14-month-old infants, a procedure previously shown to increase OT levels in infants. Infants then performed a racial categorization task presented on an eye-tracker. Mothers and infants returned a week later and repeated the procedure while self-administering the complementary substance (i.e., PL or OT, respectively). In total, 24 infants completed the two visits. We found that whereas infants in the PL condition on the first visit exhibited racial categorization, infants in the OT condition in their first visit did not. Moreover, these patterns remained a week later despite the change in substance. Thus, OT inhibited racial categorization when infants first encountered the to-be-categorized faces. These findings highlight the role of affiliative motivation in social categorization, and suggest that the neurobiology of affiliation may provide insights on mechanisms that may be involved in the downstream prejudicial consequences of intergroup bias.
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Roth KC, Reynolds GD. Neural correlates of subordinate-level categorization of own- and other-race faces in infancy. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2022; 230:103733. [DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103733] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2022] [Revised: 07/30/2022] [Accepted: 08/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
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Damon F, Quinn PC, Méary D, Pascalis O. Asymmetrical responding to male versus female other-race categories in 9- to 12-month-old infants. Br J Psychol 2022; 114 Suppl 1:71-93. [PMID: 35808935 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12582] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2021] [Revised: 06/08/2022] [Accepted: 06/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Faces can be categorized along various dimensions including gender or race, an ability developing in infancy. Infant categorization studies have focused on facial attributes in isolation, but the interaction between these attributes remains poorly understood. Experiment 1 examined gender categorization of other-race faces in 9- and 12-month-old White infants. Nine- and 12-month-olds were familiarized with Asian male or female faces, and tested with a novel exemplar from the familiarized category paired with a novel exemplar from a novel category. Both age groups showed novel category preferences for novel Asian female faces after familiarization with Asian male faces, but showed no novel category preference for novel Asian male faces after familiarization with Asian female faces. This categorization asymmetry was not due to a spontaneous preference hindering novel category reaction (Experiment 2), and both age groups displayed difficulty discriminating among male, but not female, other-race faces (Experiment 3). These results indicate that category formation for male other-race faces is mediated by categorical perception. Overall, the findings suggest that even by 12 months of age, infants are not fully able to form gender category representations of other-race faces, responding categorically to male, but not female, other-race faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fabrice Damon
- Center for Taste, Smell & Feeding Behavior, Development of Olfactory Communication & Cognition Laboratory, Université de Bourgogne, CNRS, Inrae, Institut Agro Dijon, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France
| | - Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA
| | - David Méary
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, LPNC, Grenoble, France.,LPNC, CNRS, Grenoble, France
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, LPNC, Grenoble, France.,LPNC, CNRS, Grenoble, France
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Damon F, Quinn PC, Pascalis O. When novelty prevails on familiarity: Visual biases for child versus infant faces in 3.5- to 12-month-olds. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 210:105174. [PMID: 34144347 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105174] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2020] [Revised: 03/14/2021] [Accepted: 04/05/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The current study examined the influence of everyday perceptual experience with infant and child faces on the shaping of visual biases for faces in 3.5-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month-old infants. In Experiment 1, infants were presented with pairs of photographs of unfamiliar child and infant faces. Four groups with differential experience with infant and child faces were composed from parents' reports of daily exposure with infants and children (no experience, infant face experience, child face experience, and both infant and child face experience) to assess influence of experience on face preferences. Results showed that infants from all age groups displayed a bias for the novel category of faces in relation to their previous exposure to infant and child faces. In Experiment 2, this pattern of visual attention was reversed in infants presented with pictures of personally familiar child faces (i.e., older siblings) compared with unfamiliar infant faces, especially in older infants. These results suggest that allocation of attention for novelty can supersede familiarity biases for faces depending on experience and highlight that multiple factors drive infant visual behavior in responding to the social world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fabrice Damon
- Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation, AgroSup Dijon, CNRS, INRAE, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, F-21000 Dijon, France.
| | - Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- University of Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, F-38000 Grenoble, France; Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, CNRS, F-38000 Grenoble, France
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Ferera M, Pun A, Baron AS, Diesendruck G. The effect of familiarity on infants' social categorization capacity. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0247710. [PMID: 33661945 PMCID: PMC7932097 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247710] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2020] [Accepted: 01/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent studies indicate that a preference for people from one’s own race emerges early in development. Arguably, one potential process contributing to such a bias has to do with the increased discriminability of own- vs. other-race faces–a process commonly attributed to perceptual narrowing of unfamiliar groups’ faces, and analogous to the conceptual homogenization of out-groups. The present studies addressed two implications of perceptual narrowing of other-race faces for infants’ social categorization capacity. In Experiment 1, White 11-month-olds’ (N = 81) looking time at a Black vs. White face was measured under three between-subjects conditions: a baseline “preference” (i.e., without familiarization), after familiarization to Black faces, or after familiarization to White faces. Compared to infants’ a priori looking preferences as revealed in the baseline condition, only when familiarized to Black faces did infants look longer at the "not-familiarized-category" face at test. According to the standard categorization paradigm used, such longer looking time at the novel (i.e., "not-familiarized-category") exemplar at test, indicated that categorization of the familiarized faces had ensued. This is consistent with the idea that prior to their first birthday, infants already tend to represent own-race faces as individuals and other-race faces as a category. If this is the case, then infants might also be less likely to form subordinate categories within other-race than own-race categories. In Experiment 2, infants (N = 34) distinguished between an arbitrary (shirt-color) based sub-categories only when shirt-wearers were White, but not when they were Black. These findings confirm that perceptual narrowing of other-race faces blurs distinctions among members of unfamiliar categories. Consequently, infants: a) readily categorize other-race faces as being of the same kind, and b) find it hard to distinguish between their sub-categories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matar Ferera
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
- Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
- * E-mail:
| | - Anthea Pun
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
| | - Andrew Scott Baron
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
| | - Gil Diesendruck
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
- Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
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Nitta H, Hashiya K. Self-face perception in 12-month-old infants: A study using the morphing technique. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 62:101479. [PMID: 33333429 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/18/2019] [Revised: 07/12/2020] [Accepted: 08/03/2020] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
The present study investigated self-face perception in 12-month-old infants using the morphing technique. Twenty-four 12-month-old infants participated in both the main and control experiments. In the main experiment, we used the participant's own face, an unfamiliar infant's face (age- and gender-matched), and a morphed face comprising 50 % each of the self and unfamiliar faces as stimuli. The control experiment followed the same procedure, except that the self-face was replaced with another unfamiliar face. In both experiments, two of these stimuli were presented side by side on a monitor in each trial, and infants' fixation duration was measured. Results showed that shorter fixation durations were found for the morphed face compared with the self-face and the unfamiliar face in the main experiment, but there were no significant preferences for any comparisons in the control experiment. The results suggest that 12-month-old infants could detect subtle differences in facial features between the self-face and the other faces, and infants might show less preference for the self-resembling morphed face due to increased processing costs, which can be interpreted using the uncanny valley hypothesis. Overall, representations of the self-face seem to a certain extent to be formed by the end of the first year of life through daily visual experience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hiroshi Nitta
- Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan.
| | - Kazuhide Hashiya
- Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
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Quinn PC, Balas BJ, Pascalis O. Reorganization in the representation of face-race categories from 6 to 9 months of age: Behavioral and computational evidence. Vision Res 2020; 179:34-41. [PMID: 33285348 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2020.11.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2020] [Revised: 10/31/2020] [Accepted: 11/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Prior research has reported developmental change in how infants represent categories of other-race faces (Developmental Science 19 (2016) 362-371). In particular, Caucasian 6-month-olds were shown to represent African versus Asian face categories, whereas Caucasian 9 month-olds represented different classes of other-race faces in one category, inclusive of African and Asian faces but exclusive of Caucasian faces. The current investigation sought to provide stronger evidence that is convergent with these findings by asking whether infants will generalize looking-time responsiveness from one to another other-race category. In Experiment 1, an experimental group of Caucasian 6-month-olds was familiarized with African (or Asian) faces and then given a novel category preference test with an Asian (or African) face versus a Caucasian face, while a control group of Caucasian 6-month-olds viewed the test faces without prior familiarization. Infants in the experimental group divided attention between the test faces and infants in the control group did not manifest a spontaneous preference. Experiment 2 used the same procedure, but was conducted with Caucasian 9-month-olds. Infants in the experimental group displayed a robust preference for Caucasian faces when considered against the finding that infants in the control group displayed a spontaneous preference for other-race faces. The results offer confirmation that between 6 and 9 months, infants transition to representing own-race versus other-race face categories, with the latter inclusive of multiple other-race face classes with clear perceptual differences. Computational modeling of infant responding suggests that the developmental change is rooted in the statistics of experience with majority versus minority group faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, United States.
| | - Benjamin J Balas
- Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, United States
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, Universite Grenoble Alpes, France
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Quinn PC, Lee K, Pascalis O. Face Processing in Infancy and Beyond: The Case of Social Categories. Annu Rev Psychol 2019; 70:165-189. [DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102753] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Prior reviews of infant face processing have emphasized how infants respond to faces in general. This review highlights how infants come to respond differentially to social categories of faces based on differential experience, with a focus on race and gender. We examine six different behaviors: preference, recognition, scanning, category formation, association with emotion, and selective learning. Although some aspects of infant responding to face race and gender may be accounted for by traditional models of perceptual development, other aspects suggest the need for a broader model that links perceptual development with social and emotional development. We also consider how responding to face race and gender in infancy may presage responding to these categories beyond infancy and discuss how social biases favoring own-race and female faces are formed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul C. Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA
| | - Kang Lee
- Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5R 2X2, Canada
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, Université Grenoble Alpes, 38400 Saint-Martin-d'Hères, France
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Ferera M, Baron AS, Diesendruck G. Collaborative and competitive motivations uniquely impact infants' racial categorization. EVOL HUM BEHAV 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.05.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
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Heron-Delaney M, Quinn PC, Damon F, Lee K, Pascalis O. Development of Preferences for Differently Aged Faces of Different Races. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2017; 27:172-186. [PMID: 29403159 DOI: 10.1111/sode.12253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Children's experiences with differently aged faces changes in the course of development. During infancy, most faces encountered are adult, however as children mature, exposure to child faces becomes more extensive. Does this change in experience influence preference for differently aged faces? The preferences of children for adult versus child, and adult versus infant faces were investigated. Caucasian 3- to 6-year-olds and adults were presented with adult/child and adult/infant face pairs which were either Caucasian or Asian (race consistent within pairs). Younger children (3 to 4 years) preferred adults over children, whereas older children (5 to 6 years) preferred children over adults. This preference was only detected for Caucasian faces. These data support a "here and now" model of the development of face age processing from infancy to childhood. In particular, the findings suggest that growing experience with peers influences age preferences and that race impacts on these preferences. In contrast, adults preferred infants and children over adults when the faces were Caucasian or Asian, suggesting an increasing influence of a baby schema, and a decreasing influence of race. The different preferences of younger children, older children, and adults also suggest discontinuity and the possibility of different mechanisms at work during different developmental periods.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, 19716, USA
| | - Fabrice Damon
- Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, LPNC UMR 5105, F-38040 Grenoble, France
| | - Kang Lee
- Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R 2X2
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, LPNC UMR 5105, F-38040 Grenoble, France
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