AUTHOR=Thomas Hoben , Fassbender Ina 

TITLE=Modeling Infant i's Look on Trial t: Race-Face Preference Depends on i's Looking Style

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01016

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01016

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>When employing <italic>between-infant</italic> designs young infants' looking style is related to their development: Short looking (SL) infants are cognitively accelerated over their long looking (LL) peers. In fact, looking style is a <italic>within-infant</italic> variable, and depends on infant <italic>i</italic>'s look distribution over trials. For the paired array setting, a model is provided which specifies the probability, π<sub><italic>i</italic></sub> ∈ [0, 1], that <italic>i</italic> is SL. The model is employed in a face preference study; 74 Caucasian infants were longitudinally assessed at 3, 6, and 9 months. Each <italic>i</italic> viewed same race (Caucasian) vs. other race (African) faces. Infants become SL with development, but there are huge individual differences in rate of change over age. Three month LL infants, <inline-formula><mml:math id="M1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mover accent="true"><mml:mrow><mml:mo>π</mml:mo></mml:mrow><mml:mo>^</mml:mo></mml:mover></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>i</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mo>&lt;</mml:mo><mml:mn>1</mml:mn><mml:mo>/</mml:mo><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:math></inline-formula>, preferred other race faces. SL infants, <inline-formula><mml:math id="M2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mover accent="true"><mml:mrow><mml:mo>π</mml:mo></mml:mrow><mml:mo>^</mml:mo></mml:mover></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>i</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mo>&gt;</mml:mo><mml:mn>1</mml:mn><mml:mo>/</mml:mo><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:math></inline-formula>, preferring same race faces at 3, and other race faces at 6 and 9 months. Looking style changes precede and may control changes in face preference. Ignoring looking style can be misleading: Without considering looking style, 3 month infants show no face preference.</p>