From the "you got to be kidding department" : 9 month olds show racial bias when looking at faces

Adults have more difficulty recognizing faces that belong to people of another race, and this deficit appears to start early.

New research indicates that by the time they are 9 months old, babies are better able to recognize faces and emotional expressions of people who belong to the group they interact with most, than they are those of people who belong to another race.

Babies don't start out this way; younger infants appear equally able to tell people apart, regardless of race.

"These results suggest that biases in face recognition and perception begin in preverbal infants, well before concepts about race are formed. It is important for us to understand the nature of these biases in order to reduce or eliminate [the biases]," said study researcher Lisa Scott, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in a statement. [3-Year-Olds Fancy Own Ethnic Group]

In the study, 48 Caucasian infants were given the task of differentiating between faces of their own race and faces that belonged to another, unfamiliar, race. In another experiment, sensors placed on the babies' heads detected brain activity when the babies saw images of faces of Caucasian or African-American races expressing emotions that either matched or did not match sounds they heard, such as laughing and crying.

While 5-month-olds were equally able to distinguish faces from different races, 9-month-olds fared better with their own race. Likewise, brain-activity measurements showed the 9-month-olds processed emotional expressions among Caucasian faces differently than those of African-American faces, while the 5-month-olds did not.

Specifically, a shift was seen between 5 months and 9 months of age, whereby processing of facial emotions moved from the front of the brain to regions in the back of the brain in the older age group, the researchers found. This brain shift will help scientists understand just how the brain develops with regard to their experiences with different races during the first year of life, Scott and colleagues report in a study published in the May issue of the journal Developmental Science.

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Farnsworth take:

Right off, here's one of the problems "University of Massachusetts". We all know Massachusetts is a liberal cesspool, so what can one expect.

2nd it seems to me whites turn racist at 9 months old, but we are still OK at 5. Interesting. So then is racism genetic? If so, don't we excuse behavior based on genetics?

3rd and most disturbing statement: It is important for us to understand the nature of these biases in order to reduce or eliminate [the biases],"
I'll let that stand without comment, speaks for itself.

I wonder if they even considered that maybe at 9 months old, their little brains have come on line more and they notice, hey, I look different than some of the others around me. My mom and dad, look like me. Maybe instinct directs them to people who look like themselves.

Now what I would really like to know is how children of bi-racial origin react to adults of different races....that might be an interesting comparison.

Anyway, thought this was disturbingly interesting. Comments welcome, theories welcome, outrage welcome....just whatever floats your boat on a Friday

Oh for those who migh whine about this being in poltics and news, well 90% of everything is poltics and news. So please don't clutter my post with that.....