Monolingual but not Bilingual Infants Demonstrate Racial Bias in Social Cue Use

The cognitive effects of bilingualism are evident in infants. Differences between bilingual and monolingual infants in terms of sensitivity to visual memory, executive function, and linguistic sensitivity have been shown. This study investigated whether early bilingualism impacts infants' processing of social cues, specifically early racial bias. The study's subjects were monolingual and bilingual 18- to 20-month-old infants. The study used a gaze following paradigm. The results indicated monolingual infants favored their own race while bilingual infants demonstrated raceneutral gazefollowing patterns. The bilingual infants relied more heavily on the reliability of the behavior of the model over race. Findings suggest that bilingualism may have protective effects against the early emergence of racial bias.