{
  "abstract": "Previous research has shown that 5- to 9-month-old infants spend more time looking at adults who are speaking their native language compared to adults who are speaking a foreign language (Colomer et al., 2024). However, it remains unclear whether linguistic background impacts infants’ social responses to individuals from different linguistic groups. Understanding the interaction between linguistic background and infants’ social responses is especially important in settings where children who speak minority languages may be otherwise disadvantaged in terms of access to early education and stimulation opportunities. Thus, this study examined infants’ looking time at videos of individuals speaking either Spanish (a minority language in the USA) or English, including both monolingual and non-monolingual infants. Spanish speakers represent one of the largest marginalized groups in the United States, and the infants in this study had a range of vulnerable language backgrounds, from Russian to Tagalog. To refine the distinction between monolingual and non-monolingual, we only included infants with English as their primary language (>70% exposure), categorizing monolinguals as those with 95–100% English exposure. We also extended the age range to 8–12 months to capture infants with slightly longer language exposure. Infants were shown four videos of the same individual speaking Spanish or English while either approaching the camera or playing peekaboo. Their looking behavior was recorded as they viewed the videos, and time spent looking away was assessed using DataVyu. Preliminary ANOVA analysis in R has found that monolingual infants paid more attention to native than foreign language speakers, whereas non-monolingual infants showed similar levels of attention to both types of speakers. More broadly, this highlights the role of an infant’s linguistic background in forming looking preferences and suggests that future research should expand on these findings by exploring whether socialization mechanisms remain consistent regardless of exposure to multiple languages, thereby helping clarify how infants develop language-based social biases in early developmental stages. This research may assist in identifying new ways to better support the development of infants from minority linguistic communities.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "University of Chicago, Chicago, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Shreya Thota"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "University of Chicago, Chicago, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Yiyi Wang"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "University of Chicago, Chicago, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Amanda Woodward"
    }
  ],
  "title": "102 Language exposure and infants’ preferential looking toward native versus foreign language speakers: evidence from English and minority language speakers",
  "uid": "01e95209-b7ba-58de-8bd5-52c81c088b47"
}