Infants show attentional biases for certain individuals over others based on various cues. However, the role of these biases in shaping infants' preferences and learning is not clear. This study asked whether infants' preference for native speakers (Kinzler, Dupoux, & Spelke, 2007) would modulate their preferences for tunes. After getting equal exposure to two different tunes introduced by two speakers, 7-month-olds (N = 32) listened longer to the tune that was introduced by a native speaker compared to the tune that was introduced by a foreign speaker. This suggests that the social-emotional context in which exposure to stimuli occurs influences auditory preferences, and that the early emerging attentional biases might have important ramifications regarding social learning in early infancy.

This research was supported by grants from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013): ERG Grant 323961 (UNDER CONTROL); Cooperation Grant 613465—(AThEME), the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (PSI2012-34071; Consolider-Ingenio 2010-CDS-2007-00012) and the Catalan Government (SGR 2014–1210). Núria Sebastián-Gallés received the prize “ICREA Acadèmia” for excellence in research, funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya.