We propose a set of developmental studies of face expertise acquisition from infancy to adolescence. An international team of researchers will advance significantly our on-going research program (R01 HD046526: 2004-2010) to investigate how children's face expertise acquisition is tuned by experience in their unique environments. We will use two research strategies to establish linkages between experiences and face expertise acquisition. First, we will sample infants and children from several countries to capitalize on their naturally occurring experiential differences with faces of different races, genders, ages, and species. Second, we use a training paradigm to experimentally induce different experiences with faces of various categories to infants and children. In contrast to traditional face processing studies that employ static face exemplars, we will test participants with the more naturalistic dynamic facial stimuli. This method should provide a sensitive measure of infants'and children's ability to extract characteristic properties of the face such as its race, gender, age, species, and identity. We will concurrently examine children's recognition and categorization of faces of different races, genders, ages, and species. We will test a general hypothesis that while the human visual system may favor face-like stimuli at birth, much of our face processing ability is acquired through experience with thousands of faces during development. Different degrees of exposure to various categories of faces (race, gender, age, and species) impact on our face expertise acquisition in systematically different ways: With increased experience with one type of face category (e.g., female faces) over another (e.g., male faces), children become better at recognizing the individual faces of the more experienced category (e.g., recognizing individual female faces better than male ones) but better at categorizing the less experienced faces (e.g., categorizing male faces as """"""""male"""""""" better than female faces as """"""""female""""""""). This research program will provide much needed information to form a comprehensive picture of the development of face processing abilities and to delineate the role of experience in the formation of face expertise. Our research should facilitate the development of a general theory of face processing in children and adults. The methods we refine for this project can be of use for clinical studies and assessments that involve children with atypical trajectories in the development of face processing including cases of autism and developmental prosopagnosia. Our findings may also provide information about the origin of social biases such as race-, gender-, and age-stereotypes and prejudices, and methods to reduce them.

Public Health Relevance

This research program investigates how typically developing infants and children acquire the ability to classify faces into different categories according to their gender, race, age, and species and the ability to recognize individual faces from within these categories. The results from this research will provide the normative bench mark against which we can evaluate the face processing abilities of children with various developmental and neurological disorders (e.g., autism, William's syndrome, developmental prosopagnosia). The methodologies developed from the program of research will enable clinicians to develop appropriate assessment tools to identify and diagnose infants and children with potential face processing problems. Further, the training method we will test in the present proposed program of research will also allow for the development of evidence-based intervention programs to treat face processing deficits in childhood. Finally, our findings may also provide information about the origin of social biases such as race-, gender-, and age-stereotypes and prejudices, and methods to reduce them.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD046526-08
Application #
8289324
Study Section
Cognition and Perception Study Section (CP)
Program Officer
Freund, Lisa S
Project Start
2004-06-07
Project End
2013-05-31
Budget Start
2012-06-01
Budget End
2013-05-31
Support Year
8
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$351,984
Indirect Cost
$12,010
Name
University of Toronto
Department
Type
DUNS #
259999779
City
Toronto
State
ON
Country
Canada
Zip Code
M5 1-S8
Heron-Delaney, Michelle; Quinn, Paul C; Damon, Fabrice et al. (2018) Development of Preferences for Differently Aged Faces of Different Races. Soc Dev 27:172-186
Xiao, Naiqi G; Wu, Rachel; Quinn, Paul C et al. (2018) Infants Rely More on Gaze Cues From Own-Race Than Other-Race Adults for Learning Under Uncertainty. Child Dev 89:e229-e244
Stiles, Joan (2017) Principles of brain development. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci 8:
Damon, Fabrice; Méary, David; Quinn, Paul C et al. (2017) Preference for facial averageness: Evidence for a common mechanism in human and macaque infants. Sci Rep 7:46303
Qian, Miao K; Quinn, Paul C; Heyman, Gail D et al. (2017) Perceptual individuation training (but not mere exposure) reduces implicit racial bias in preschool children. Dev Psychol 53:845-859
Heron-Delaney, Michelle; Damon, Fabrice; Quinn, Paul C et al. (2017) An adult face bias in infants that is modulated by face race. Int J Behav Dev 41:581-587
Lee, Kang; Quinn, Paul C; Pascalis, Olivier (2017) Face race processing and racial bias in early development: A perceptual-social linkage. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 26:256-262
Qian, Miao K; Quinn, Paul C; Heyman, Gail D et al. (2017) A Long-Term Effect of Perceptual Individuation Training on Reducing Implicit Racial Bias in Preschool Children. Child Dev :
Richoz, Anne-Raphaëlle; Quinn, Paul C; Hillairet de Boisferon, Anne et al. (2017) Audio-Visual Perception of Gender by Infants Emerges Earlier for Adult-Directed Speech. PLoS One 12:e0169325
Zhao, Jia; Liu, Jiangang; Jiang, Xin et al. (2016) Linking Resting-State Networks in the Prefrontal Cortex to Executive Function: A Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy Study. Front Neurosci 10:452

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