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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Developmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1392042
This article is part of the Research Topic Neurobiological, Psychological, and Environmental Influences on Parenting and Child Development: An Inclusive and Interdisciplinary Perspective View all 10 articles

Toward Characterization of Perceptual Specialization for Faces in Multiracial Contexts

Provisionally accepted
Charisse B Pickron Charisse B Pickron 1*Ethan Kutlu Ethan Kutlu 2
  • 1 University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St. Paul, United States
  • 2 The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This conceptual analysis focuses on opportunities to advance research and current hypotheses of perceptual development by examining what is presently known and unknown about perceptual specialization in a Multiracial context during the first year of life. The impact of being raised in a Multiracial family or community is discussed to further characterize the development of perceptual expertise for faces and languages. Historical and present-day challenges faced by researchers in defining what race is, identifying Multiracial individuals or contexts, and how to study perceptual and cognitive processes in this population are discussed. We propose to leverage current data from developmental Multilingual populations as a guide for future research questions and hypotheses characterizing perceptual specialization based on face race for Multiracial/Multiethnic individuals and contexts. Variability of input and the pattern of specialization are two factors identified from the developmental Multilingual literature that are likely useful for studying Multiracial contexts and development. Several methodological considerations are proposed in hopes of facilitating research questions and practices that are reflective of and informed by the diversity of experiences and social complexities within Multiracial populations.

    Keywords: Perceptual specialization, multiracial populations, face processing, Infancy, Developmental multilingualism

    Received: 26 Feb 2024; Accepted: 22 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Pickron and Kutlu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Charisse B Pickron, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St. Paul, United States

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