Attention and Perceptual Learning Interact in the Development of the Other-Race Effect

Face-processing abilities are biased such that some faces are differentiated, recognized, and identified more readily than others. Across the first year of life, experience with faces shapes the development of face-processing biases. However, the developmental trajectory of face processing and important contributing factors are not well understood. In order to better characterize the development of face processing during infancy, we propose a model involving repeated interactions between attention and perceptual learning. This interactive framework predicts that bottom-up attention orienting to faces leads to rapid perceptual learning about frequently experienced faces, top-down selective-attention biases for familiar faces, and increasingly refined neural representations across the first year of life.