When babies are five months old, they can distinguish among faces of all races equally well. Past studies show they can, for instance, match a happy sound with many kinds of happy faces with equal ease. Yet by nine months, babies react more swiftly to their own race than others: they differentiate more readily between faces and match emotional sounds with facial expressions faster. A study from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, published in May in Developmental Science, showed that the younger infants use only the frontal part of the brain for the task. By nine months, babies also recruit the occipital-temporal region, where recognition happens in adults.

“The older babies are tending to use more of these adultlike face-processing, object-recognition regions of the brain,” says psychologist Lisa Scott, an author of the study. “Their brains weren't trying as hard,” she notes, because the older infants have more experiences to draw on. This finding adds to the theory that the newborn brain weighs most inputs and stimuli equally, perhaps resulting in the mingling of the senses known as synesthesia. As the brain matures, it learns to attend more to the sights and sounds important in the baby's life, such as faces that match his or her caregivers' race and sounds in the infant's native language. This theory matches physical neural development: a newborn's brain is massively connected, and over time important circuits are strengthened and unnecessary wiring is pruned.

3 Comments

1. 1. CourtneyS 11:04 AM 10/3/12

   This blog is interesting. It's interesting that babies are starting to develop adult-like face processing and how they could possiby see someone's race. I'm confused on the part about the part where the author says that the babies can match the faces of their caregivers. I wonder if babies know the difference between different races?

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2. 2. CourtneyS 11:05 AM 10/3/12

   *possibly.

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3. 3. pahdri 03:47 AM 10/4/12

   Dear courtneyS & other readers asking the same question:
   
   I am probably one a small minority of people who can answer this easily. Many multiracial people are raised by only one parent, as our society still is not very supportive of families like mine. Asian and White mixing is a more common these days, but I have a Black/Asian/Native American (very dark) mother and an Irish (very pale) father who have been happily married now for over 52 years. How rare is this? Well, their marriage was illegal in the U.S.A. until their fourth child was born. Also, for decades after they married, only .001 percent of all Black/White marriages were between a White man and a Black Woman. I am one of 5 children. I did not know that my parents were different races until I was 9 years old, when kids at school began their insults. I asked my older brother what they meant, and he explained that our parents were different colors, and that mattered to other people for some reason. It was difficult for me to understand - because before that point, my parents were just "mommy" and "daddy". I saw all people as the same race - human. I differentiated faces within all races easily. I suppose the author did not address brains like mine, and that would be an interesting study.
   
   The author also left out the fact that before nine months, babies probably can differentiate between hundreds of different racial types quite easily - just like they can differentiate between hundreds of languages before nine months, but after-wards - they are only good at distinguishing the difference between their own language and others, focusing mostly on their own. This result is similar to focusing on relevant racial (visual) cues, and the brain pruning itself to process what is most useful to the baby's functioning in his/her unique environment.
   
   And yes,.. the author did not get into the synesthesia discussion much, but that is actually the most interesting topic out of the article. I also beleive that all babies have synesthesia - which is the genius ability to have literally 'extra' sensory perception - because the senses in your brain are interconnected due to unfinished pruning, which allows someone more than six senses. I have this ability and I have learned over time that it has allowed me to experience more in life as well as learn and absorb the world better than if I didn't have it. Daniel Tammet also has synesthesia, and he really makes use of it more than any synesthesian I know.
   
   peace & love,
   Pahdri
   neuroscientist & artist

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