Infants' intermodal knowledge about gender.

The aim of this study was to seek evidence of intermodal knowledge about gender in young infants that would provide direct evidence of the existence of gender categories during the 1st year. In Experiment 1, 9- and 12-month-olds were presented with pairs of male and female pictures with a female or male voice presented simultaneously. The infants spent significantly more time looking at the pictures matching the voices than at the same pictures paired with mismatching voices, but only in the case of female stimuli. Comparison to chance level performance suggested that the matching effect was more consistent in older subjects. In Experiment 2, a 2nd group of 9-month-olds was tested with a set of highly stereotypical faces and distinctive male and female voices. Infants showed a preference for the faces matching the voices, but this effect was again restricted to female stimuli