Charisse B Pickron¹ (), Vandita Gupta¹, Tamanna Dharamsey², Benjamin R Eisenreich¹, Melissa J Polonenko¹; ¹University of Minnesota, ²Ashoka University

Infants develop face processing expertise and build categories about people throughout the first 24 months of life. But to what extent is early face perception and attention influenced by auditory labels? By 3 months of age infants perceptually form categories of male and female faces, yet it is unclear if any gendered auditory labels are associated with such faces. The words ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ are commonly used words in the U.S. and have heteronormative associations with female and male faces respectively. In this pre-registered on-going study, we are investigating the way face perception and attention are shaped by auditory labels that contain gendered information. We are recording electroencephalography (EEG) with a 64-channel high-density hydrocel ANT Neuro cap from 9-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month-old infants while they complete an audio-visual face perception task. The aim is to evaluate time-locked neural responses (ERPs) to faces and novel objects which have been primed with a verbal prompt of ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy.’ Three conditions are randomly presented to infants: 1) Congruent: hearing the word ‘mommy/daddy’ and seeing heteronormative gender-matched faces, 2) Incongruent: hearing these labels and seeing mismatched gendered faces, and 3) Object: seeing a novel non-human object after the heard label. We will analyze amplitude differences for face-sensitive components N290 and P400, and an attention allocation component Nc (Guy et al., 2016) using Mixed Measures ANOVA with Condition and electrode region as within-subjects factors and infant age as a between-subjects factor. Preliminary data (n=4) display N290 & P400 averaged waveforms with similar amplitudes across the three conditions, however the Nc amplitude is larger for Object and Incongruent conditions relative to Congruent. We anticipate data from approximately 30 participants by May. Results will inform our understanding of early antecedents to gender stereotype formation. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.