Bilingual infants and toddlers show increased attention capture by faces compared to monolinguals (Mercure et al., 2018; Mousley et al., 2023). A reason for this heightened sensitivity may be that facial information help navigate complex communicative environments: Quick speaker recognition helps predict which language is impending. Efficient processing of emotional facial expression provides a head-start in intention-reading (Wu et al., 2021). We explore if bilinguals’ increased social orienting extends into the preschool years and if it makes them more efficient face processors. Study 1 tested 3-4-year-old monolinguals and bilinguals on a visual search task featuring social (faces) and non-social (fruit) targets. In study 2, an independent sample of preschoolers took part in a face-matching paradigm. Participants were asked to tap on the two faces that were “most alike” among four options. Faces either matched on “more communicatively relevant” (identity, emotional facial expression) or “less communicatively relevant” dimensions (sex, ethnicity).

Authors:

Ricarda Brieke: University College London (UCL); Chunru Wang: UCL; Lasana Harris: UCL